New Friends, New Enemies
by ArcaneWeapon
Summary: A Clerith romance in a High School setting within the FFVII world.  After transferring to Aerith's school for his final year, Cloud is forced to solve a dark mystery in order to be with the woman he loves.  Romance/Drama/Mystery/Dark
1. First Day

**New Friends, New Enemies**

**A FFVII Fan Fiction **

**By: ArcaneWeapon**

* * *

**First off I have to say I'm quite surprised that I'm actually writing a HS fic, I never really thought I would. I love the Cloud/Aerith pairing, but I was getting tired of bringing Aerith back to life, after all, there's only so many times you can do that before the stories all start blending together. So stepping away from ****Lost Love**** and ****A Love Lost**** I came up with this idea and ever since then it's refused to leave me alone. While this is a HS fic it is still based IN the FFVII world, so I'm not taking the characters and dragging them into a modern day High School. Regarding the characters I tried to keep them as intact as possible, the largest change I made was obviously their ages, and even in that regard I tried to keep them as similar as possible. I.E. Aerith is still older then Cloud and Tifa is still younger. Other then that I hope you enjoy reading this, I'm certainly looking forward to writing the huge story that's slowly expanding in my head and demanding to be written down.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters mentioned in this fic, they all belong to Square-Enix.**

* * *

**Chapter 1: The First Day**

Cloud stepped off of Fenrir and raised his shades to rest on the top of his spiky blond hair as he examined what was to be his new school.

'_Damn, why the hell did Mom and Dad have to choose now to move to the big city? I wonder if they even thought about _my_ life when they made the decision.'_

Cloud knew his parents were eager to take up the new, better, job positions they had been offered here and he also knew, despite his thoughts, that they had definitely taken his feelings into consideration. He was just pissed off that he'd been pulled away from his senior year of school at Junon High and now had to start all over at some strange new school.

'_Nothing to be done about it now besides sucking it up and dealing with it,'_ he thought sullenly. '_Although starting senior year without knowing a single person is really going to suck.'_

His parents had tried to make it up to him with the present of a brand new motorcycle, his very own, and he had to admit it was a pretty awesome gift. He glanced down and smiled at the bike that he had christened "Fenrir" after a wolf spoken of in legends, a name he felt fit it quite well.

'_I better hurry up or I'm going to be late' _he thought as he headed towards the stairs that lead up to the entrance of the building.

He couldn't help but compare the building to his old school as he approached. Instead of bricks this one was built of concrete, it only had one floor instead of the two he was used to, and he was pretty sure that in general it was just smaller.

'_That's right, Mom said this was the private high school in Midgar, the public one has to be a lot bigger for a city this size.'_

As he stepped through the glass doors Cloud looked around for the office, figuring that would be the best place to start. Spotting it to the right of the entrance he headed over and glanced at the nameplate outside the door before stepping through.

Barret Wallace

Principal

The room was pretty small with one window, a desk filling up half of the room, and papers strewn across the rest of the room with some attempt at organization that was clearly failing miserably. The man sitting in the chair behind the desk currently working on some of the paperwork and unaware of Cloud's entrance definitely did not match Cloud's idea of a principal.

'_What kind of school _is _this??'_

He was huge. Muscles bulged everywhere, especially in his arms, his hair was cut leaving only what was on top in addition to a short beard. There was a small silver earring in his left ear as well as a tattoo of a skull breathing flames on his left arm. He wore a ripped, un-buttoned, brown vest, a belt containing various types on ammunition, and baggy green pants. By far the most unusual and striking part about him was his right hand. Or actually it was his complete lack of a right hand and in it's place, of all things, a gatling gun.

'_Oookay, this is definitely a principal I do _not _want to get on the wrong side of.'_

Cloud cleared his throat before speaking up to introduce himself, "Excuse me I…"

"Who the fuck are you," Barret roared at him, instantly raising his head and glaring at the intruder.

"'m Cloud Strife." Cloud finished, his eyes widening as he unwillingly flinched backwards at the anger in the man's voice and eyes.

'_Great, it looks like I've already managed to get on his bad side. That or he doesn't have a good side…'_

"So you're the new student ehh?" Barret replied, noticeably calming down. Somewhat. "What do you want with me?"

"Well I figured seeing as how I'm new and all this would be the best place to… start… out?" Cloud faded off as the look of anger in Barret's eyes increased once more.

'_Damn! How does this guy manage to keep his job? On second thought maybe I'd rather not know…'_

"I don't know how you're used to having things run," Barret growled, "but I'm not here to help walk you through your day. If you have questions then find a damn student and ask them, I'm busy trying to run this school. Now if you'll excuse me kindly leave my office before I'm forced to do something I think we'd both regret."

Not wanting to upset the man Cloud quickly backed out of the room and tried to figure out what to do next.

'_Great, that went amazingly well. I can't believe he treated me like that!' _Cloud fumed. Against his better senses Cloud decided to go back into the room and get the answers he was looking for. Before he could take a single step, however, a voice spoke from the shadows behind him.

"I wouldn't go back in there if I were you."

Cloud spun around to see a boy roughly his own age looking at him. He was dressed mainly in black with a red cape draped over his shoulders and a red band tied around his shoulder length night black hair.

"The name's Vincent," the boy said.

"Oh, hi I'm Cloud," Cloud responded as he took in the strange metal claw on his right arm and the gun holstered at his belt.

"I take it you're a new student? Don't worry about Barret, he's always like that around people he doesn't know. Once you get to know him I'm sure you'll like him a lot more," Vincent continued.

'_Hah! Right…'_

"Anyways, I suppose I should help you out with the basics, common, we can talk as we head to morning class, otherwise we'll be late."

"Uhh, morning class?" Cloud asked confused, "I haven't signed up to take any classes yet so I have no idea where to go."

"I suppose this would be a good place to start explaining," replied Vincent as they headed down the hall. "As you've probably already noticed this isn't really a normal school. Instead of periods of classes our days are split into two halves, morning class, and afternoon class. Morning class is pretty standard I suppose, we cover math, history, English, all the basics."

"And afternoon class?" Cloud asked, noticing a sparkle in Vincent's eyes as he started speaking.

"Ahh, afternoon class makes morning class worth sitting though. After lunch we move on to weapons and Materia training,"

"What!?" Cloud exclaimed in surprise.

Vincent nodded in affirmation before continuing on. "Cid trains us in our weapons and then Bugenhagen teaches us to use Materia. To tell the truth though I'm not totally sure how this year is going to work out."

"Why's that?"

"Well the first two years here are entirely devoted to morning classes, the freshmen and sophomores don't do any weapons or Materia training. Juniors get introduced to weapons, but only the seniors get to use Materia. So that's going to be new to everyone this year."

"How big is the class?" Cloud asked.

"Oh right, that's also something different with this school, class sizes are all super small ours is thirty students I think. Since they're so small, everyone is pretty much together always. It can get annoying at times…," Vincent trailed off.

The two walked the rest of the way in silence, Cloud thinking about what he had just learned.

_Well at least if the class is that small I'll get to know people pretty fast. Weapons and Materia training though! Maybe this school isn't so bad after all._

Vincent stopped in front of a wooden door and turned to face Cloud again. "This is where we have class in the morning, it starts in two minutes at nine o'clock, usually you should try and get here earlier though." He waited for Cloud to nod before continuing, "Most classrooms have a small room right before the actual classroom, it's for weapon storage, okay? _Never_ bring a weapon into a classroom unless it's Cid's."

Turning around again Vincent opened the door and stepped through, Cloud close on his heels. He glanced around the room inspecting the various weapons as Vincent placed his gun on a stand next to a few others.

'_Guns, swords, even a staff, but nothing close to _my _sword,'_ Cloud thought, regretting leaving his at home as he figured he wouldn't need it.

He noticed Vincent leaving and followed him into the classroom, the small amounts of chatter that had been going on cutting off instantly as the two of them entered.

"Well, well, well," said a man with short black hair in a blue suit at the front of the room, "who's your friend there?"

Vincent merely grunted, "New student" before heading over to a desk in the middle of the room and sitting down.

'_Oh thanks a lot friend.'_

"Uh, hi… I'm Cloud," he said in introduction, slightly uncomfortable with thirty pairs of eyes staring at him.

"That's nice," the teacher drawled, "but please go take your seat, class should have already started, you can meet everyone at lunch."

The desks were arranged in six rows of five with a pathway down the center to get to the back of the room. The only empty spot Cloud could see was a single chair in the back corner of the room so he headed over there, avoiding looking at anyone in particular.

'_Great, what's this? The dunce chair?'_

Cloud could hear people whispering about him, but he completely ignored them, trying to focus on what the teacher was saying.

"We'll be starting this year focusing on Calculus and some of the more abstract history of the world…"

The teacher was speaking in a monotone, however, and Cloud was already bored by the brief introduction.

'_Now I see why Vincent said the afternoon made sitting through the morning worth while, this is horrible.'_

Deciding this would be a good time to get a first impression of his fellow classmates Cloud started looking around the room. By the way people were whispering to each other and passing notes he could tell he wasn't the only bored one.

Other then some guy with ridiculously long silver hair and Vincent everyone pretty much looked like normal high school students. For some reason he felt his attention drawn to a girl sitting in the front row. She was wearing a red vest and had her hair done up in a ponytail with a large pink ribbon tied in between her ears. Other then that he couldn't tell much since she was sitting down, as well as the fact that guy sitting behind her was slightly blocking his view.

He saw the girl sitting to her left, who had long black hair and seemed to be wearing black as well, pass her a note, which she carefully unfolded and read before raising one hand to her lips to muffle her laughter, She then quickly turned around to smile at the guy sitting behind her before turning back around, still giggling softly.

When she had turned around Cloud had seen her face and he still felt stunned, his eyes wide open. Her pale skin was perfect with nothing marring the surface, her eyes were a brilliant emerald green, and her lips were a faint shade of pink.

'_She's… beautiful…'_

"I hope you're paying attention new student," he heard the teacher call out annoyed, "This material will be covered on your tests as well you know."

Cloud flushed in embarrassment as he heard people laughing at him, and he bent down to his bag to grab some paper and a pen. He spent the rest of class taking notes, but he couldn't get the girl's face out of his mind.

* * *

The bell ringing to signal the end of class couldn't have been a more pleasing sound. Glad to be finally done with this part of the day Cloud quickly stuffed his notes back into his bag and stood up to stretch.

'_Three straight hours of class is brutal, I can't wait to see what the rest of the day is like though.'_

Noticing that everyone else was filing out Cloud joined them, looking for Vincent. Figuring the best pace to meet him would be in the hall since he couldn't find him in the press of people, Cloud quickly walked through the weapons room. To his surprise the girl in black who had been sitting next to the one girl was already standing in the hall tapping her foot impatiently.

"Oh, are you new here too since you don't have a weapon?" Cloud asked, trying to strike up a conversation.

Before he knew what happened he felt his back hitting the wall followed by two impacts on either side of his head as she punched the wall to lean in, her red eyes glowing hotly. This close he realized her hair wasn't actually black, it was just a really dark shade of brown.

"I'm not some helpless girl that needs your protection," she growled softly, "and no, I'm not new, this is my fourth year."

"You show him Tifa!" someone called out behind her.

'_Great, another scene, just what I need.'_

"These are my weapons," she continued, removing her hands from the wall and taking a step back as she patted something behind her.

'_Her ass?!'_ Cloud thought in confusion at first before he noticed a pair of black gloves tucked in her belt.

"Common Tif, leave the poor guy alone," Cloud heard a girl say and Tifa nodded as she turned away.

"Lets go get some lunch," Tifa replied to the girl who had spoken as Cloud realized it had been the girl sitting next to her.

As he watched them walk away in the direction the other students were heading he was better able to see what she was wearing, In addition to her red vest she wore a pink shirt and a matching pink skirt that came to just above her knees. He also noticed that she was carrying the staff he had seen in the weapons room.

Cloud felt someone prod his shoulder and he turned to see Vincent standing behind him.

"I see you've met Tifa," the boy said with a small smirk.

"Yah…" was the only reply Cloud could come up with.

"Don't mind her," Vincent said as he headed in the same direction, gesturing for Cloud to follow. "Tifa's always been the youngest one in the grade and she hates it when people judge her based on that. Regardless she's damn strong so no one ever messes with her."

"Yah, I noticed," replied Cloud as he rubbed his chest, feeling the bruise her blow to knock him into the wall had left.

Cloud followed Vincent in silence as they got into line in the cafeteria before getting their food and heading over to a table in the corner. He noticed Tifa and her friend sitting at a table on the other side of the room and started at them, completely forgetting about his food.

"I see you've also met Aerith," Vincent said, laughing softly. "Don't get any ideas."

'_Aerith? Is that her name? And what the hell does he mean "Don't get any ideas"?!'_

Noticing the guy with spiky black hair who had been sitting behind her join them at their table, Cloud asked Vincent who he was.

"That's the reason you shouldn't be getting any ideas, his name's Zack."

"Oh… So they're like… together?" Cloud asked, feeling something stir inside him as he took a bite of his meal.

'_What? I can't be… jealous already? Can I?'_

"Technically no, I think, they're still just really good friends at this point."

Cloud smiled and ate with more enthusiasm at hearing this. "Thanks a lot for all your help Vincent," Cloud said between bites. "If you don't mind I have a few more questions about who's who if you don't mind."

"Sure Cloud, although I'm probably not the best person to be asking."

"Oh? Why's that?" Cloud asked as he stopped eating to look up at Vincent.

"Well… you see I'm…" Vincent started hesitantly. "Well, I'm really a loner. So I really don't know anyone very well. But I'll try and answer your questions regardless."

'_Vincent? A loner?" _Cloud would have never been able to guess from what he'd seen of him so far.

Cloud gestured towards the boy with the long silver hair who was sitting alone at a table, "Who's that? He seem like more of a loner then you."

For a moment Cloud thought he saw a faint flash of fear appear in Vincent's eyes before he responded. "That's Sephiroth… You're right he is a loner and no one really knows much about him at all. He came to this school the beginning of last year and ever since then he's never tried to make friends with anyone. Other then that he's probably the best student next to Aerith and a master of that sword he carries."

Deciding not to ask about the look he had seen in Vincent's eyes, Cloud pointed to a group of five people at a table making the most noise in the entire room. "And who are those guys?"

"They call themselves the 'Turks,' I suppose you could consider them as the school's gang. They're remarkably good at not getting caught so they've never really been punished, but whenever something crazy happens around school everyone knows it was them."

"Rufus is their leader," continued Vincent, pointing him out. "The others are Tseng, Reno, Rude, and Elena," he finished, pointing out each of them in turn.

Cloud nodded his thanks and went back to eating his meal, glad that he at least knew who some of the people in his new class were.

When he finished his food he was surprised to see Vincent point back to the table Aerith as sitting at and speak up. "Since I can tell from that look in your eyes you're not going to give up so easily that girl that just joined them at their table is Yuffie. She's in the grade below us but is still good friends with both Tifa and Aerith. Being around her can get annoying after a while though, she has far too much energy."

Cloud glanced over to see a smaller girl wearing a green shirt that revealed her belly, short brown pants, and some kind of weird arm guard on her left arm had joined the table. Strapped to her back was a large shuriken.

"And just as a final warning," Vincent said firmly as the bell rang, indicating the end of lunch, "Don't get on Zack's bad side, he's not as good as Sephiroth but he's still pretty good with that sword of his."

"Thanks for the warning friend, but I can hold my own ground in a fight."

"I suppose we're about to see about that," replied Vincent smiling as they headed to their next class.

* * *

"No weapon you say? Why the fuck not?" Cid demanded.

"I'm sorry sir, I didn't know I'd need to bring one. I'm new," Cloud finished.

"Well I suppose I could let you borrow one then," Cid replied. "What kind of weapon do you prefer?"

"Do you have a room of them you could show me? I'm… rather picky about my swords."

Not questioning this strange statement Cid gestured for Cloud to follow him into a back room. Once inside Cloud was surprised to see every single type of melee weapon he had ever seen lining the walls and even some new ones. His eye was only drawn to one of them, however, and he slowly walked to stand in front of the massive blade hanging on the wall.

"Ahh, a greatsword," Cid called out. "So you like something slow that hits really fucking hard ehh?"

Cloud reached up and lifted the sword off it's hold with one hand before turning around to face Cid, noticing a slight look of surprise in his eyes.

'_Slow? Yah right!'_

Swinging the sword up to rest on his shoulder Cloud walked out of the room. "This will do nicely," he said as he passed Cid.

As he left the back room Cloud walked over to Vincent who also seemed to be surprised by something.

'_Damn, what's gotten into them all, it's not like this thing is anything special. It's a piece of junk really, compared to my Buster Sword.'_

"Well now that that's over with I just have a few things to say before you begin," Cid announced to the class as he closed to door to the back room.

"Most of you know the rules already but I'm going over them again just to make sure. You're allowed to train on your own or in pairs, I don't care which. I'll be walking around the room helping and giving pointers. Unlike last year there's no scheduled lessons, most of you have already become quite good with your weapons of choice so from this point on it's just perfecting your fighting style."

"One last thing," Cid growled, his voice dropping angrily. "If you do decide to train with another and duel there will be no fucking contact, do I make myself clear? No. Fucking. Contact. Break that rule and I'll haul your sorry ass to Barret and let him deal with you."

Seeing that his students had gotten the message Cid gestured for them to begin.

Cloud glanced around the room, unsure of what to do. He knew a duel with Vincent wouldn't really work, but he didn't know anyone else well enough to ask them. Deciding he might as well train on his own he was surprised when Sephiroth appeared in front of him.

"I challenge you to a duel," the silver haired boy said in a low voice.

Cloud noticed Vincent over Sephiroth's shoulder, his eyes wide and violently shaking his head. "Yah, sure," Cloud replied smiling as he lowered the sword from his shoulder and gripped it with both hands, shifting his feet to enter a fighting stance.

Scanning his eyes around the room to make sure he knew where everything, and everyone was, Cloud was surprised to notice that everyone had stopped what they had been doing and were now watching him and Sephiroth.

'_Okay, so either I kick his ass and impress everyone or I get my ass kicked and earn everyone's sympathy. Either way it's a win-win situation… right?'_

Focusing his thoughts on the man in front of him Cloud mentally gauged up his opponent.

'_He's older then me but that doesn't mean much, he's taller which might give him a bit of an advantage, but then again it might make him a bit slower since he's bigger then me. That large black trench coat might work in my favor, although the fact that it's sleeves are tucked into his gauntlets and his pants are tucked into his boots indicate that he's well aware of how hindersome flapping clothing can be. Those shoulder pads would protect from blows to the neck, but since this is just a duel they don't really matter._

"Well, are you going to draw your sword and fight or are you just gonna stand there staring at me?" Cloud shouted, trying to provoke him. He heard whispers pass among the other students and even thought he heard "Oh wow, Sephiroth is going to _kill_ him!" from one of them.

'_Damn, everyone's terrified of this guy, just what exactly have I gotten myself into?'_

"Well, it seem you have more courage then the rest of our fellow classmates," Sephiroth smirked. "It looks like you're not going to run so let us begin," he said as he slowly drew his sword.

Cloud's eyes widened involuntarily as he watched Sephiroth draw his sword. '_No way, that thing has to be around six feet long!'_

"I wonder how long you can last against my Masamune?" Sephiroth mockingly questioned as he charged.

'_He's fast.' _Was all Cloud was able to think as he swung his sword to block the blow.

Sephiroth quickly stepped to the right and swung at Cloud's other side, figuring he'd never be able to move his huge sword to block him in time. To his surprise, however, Cloud easily managed to block this attack as well.

Cloud could hear the other student's talking much louder now but he completely ignored them as he focused his attention on Sephiroth, trying to learn how he fought. Once he thought he'd figured it out well enough Cloud launched his own assault.

As the battle continued on with neither of the combatants able to touch the other Cloud noticed a look of deep hatred filling Sephiroth's eyes. He then realized that Sephiroth's blows were coming in much harder then they had before and with much less control.

'_Damn, what's he trying to do? If I missed blocking one of those attacks he'd… Oh shit," _Cloud realized.

He wasn't the only one who noticed, however as members of the class started screaming.

"Alright, that's enough you two, stop this at once," Cid shouted angrily. "I know you can hear me, stop fucking fighting!"

"I'd stop," Cloud growled in response, "but then I'd die."

As the fight continued the two involved were surprised to see a spear stabbed between them, preventing them from continuing.

Glad to see his plan had worked Cid glared at Sephiroth, "You're coming with me, the rest of you had better be training on your own when I get back you hear? And no more fucking duels for today," he finished as he grabbed Sephiroth's arm and dragged him out of the room.

Cloud dropped to one knee and planted his sword into the ground to lean against it, still ignoring everyone else in the room.

'_That's probably the closest I've ever come to losing my life. I can't believe he lost control like that…'_

He felt a hand rest on his shoulder and looked up to see Vincent standing above him.

"That was damn impressive Cloud," he said in admiration, "I've never seen someone move a sword that large so fast much less someone actually hold Sephiroth off in a duel. I'm afraid you've made yourself a new enemy though. Sephiroth was always proud that he was the best swordsman in the grade, he's not going to like competition for that position."

"I could hardly care less about being considered the best swordsman or not," Cloud muttered, still trying to catch his breath. "What I do care about though is the fact he completely lost control and tried to actually hurt me!"

"I don't think anyone, especially Cid, saw that coming. Honestly I can't believe Sephiroth did it, he had to have known there would be consequences."

"Such as?"

"Well I'm sure Cid took him to Barret, you can guess what that conversation will be like."

Cloud smiled softly as he thought about that encounter. He hoped never to be in the same room with both Cid and Barret pissed off at him.

"I doubt they'll do anything severe since nothing really happened," continued Vincent, "but I'd bet on them putting him in detention for the rest of the day."

"Vincent, I told you to train, Cloud, come with me," Cid said from behind them, startling the two of them.

Cloud watched as Vincent walked off to join the other student's around the gun targets before getting to his feet and following Cid into the back room.

"Are you alright Cloud?" Cid asked him when they were alone.

"Yah, I'm fine, thanks. What happened to Sephiroth?"

"That's none of your concern. Don't worry though, Barret's taking care of him. I have to say though that I'm quite impressed, I doubt even I could have held off Sephiroth for that long."

Cloud looked up at Cid to see if he was serious, but didn't reply.

"I'm not joking," Cid said laughing. "That kid is far too good with his sword. I can say though that you two will never be dueling again, I don't want a repeat of today, you understand?"

Cloud nodded. "I'm sorry," he apologized.

"Nah, it wasn't your fault, I could tell you fell back entirely on the defensive once he got out of control. I'm just glad you're so damn good as well so I didn't have to call your parents to let them know their son had been mutilated on the first day of class."

Cloud laughed with Cid as the older man told him to put his weapon back and to just spend the rest of class watching the others. "That was more then enough training for the day, you deserve a break."

As Cloud relaxed watching the other students practice, he couldn't help but watch Aerith practicing with her staff.

He didn't know much about fighting with a staff, but what he did know about fighting told him that she wasn't a very good one.

'_It would seem that the other students aren't as crazy good with their weapons as Sephiroth is, that would explain why they seemed so afraid of him."_

He watched as Tifa walked over to her and the two of them started talking. He was too far away to hear, but to his surprise by the way they kept quickly glancing over towards him he guessed he was the topic of conversation. Glancing around the room he realized most of the class was actually shooting him an occasional glance.

'_Well I guess not everything about that fight was a bad thing…'_

After a few minutes the bell rang, signaling the end of class. The students filed out and headed next doors to where the Materia classroom was. Cloud could almost feel the excitement in the air as everyone talked about what this new class would be like. He glanced around to see if Sephiroth had joined them, but he couldn't see the silver haired older student anywhere.

'_Damn, if that fight didn't make him hate me then missing this class sure as hell will.'_

As the students entered the classroom they saw that instead of desks, there were green cushions laid out on the floor, each with a candle and a small green orb laying on the ground in front of them.

Cloud glanced to where Aerith was sitting, but all the seats around her were taken so he randomly picked a place in the middle of the room and sat down.

Once all the students had taken their seats a door at the front of the room opened and a small, elderly man floated out.

'_What the!?'_

"Welcome to Materia training," the man said in a kind voice. "I'm sure most of you have seen me around, but for those who haven't my name is Bugenhagen and I will be your teacher."

"In front of each of you is a candle along with a fire Materia. For today all you need to do is to try and light your candle. For some it will be easier then others, but for your first day don't worry if you can't manage the task."

"Uhh, sir? How do we… use them?" a boy Cloud didn't know asked.

Bugenhagen blinked at him in confusion before responding. "Simply hold the Materia in your hand and focus your thoughts through it into the wick of the candle. It will take practice, but hopefully you should start feeling energy building up inside the orb." Following this statement he floated over to the light switch and flicked it off, engulfing the room in darkness.

Along with the rest of the class Cloud reached down and carefully picked up his Materia.

'_Huh, fire ehh? Doesn't feel hot, it actually feels rather cold. Focus my thoughts through this?'_

Cloud tried to do as Bugenhagen had described but he couldn't feel anything happening at all. His concentration was broken by a small squeak of surprise followed by astonished gasps from other students. He looked up and over to where the sounds had come from and was shocked to see the candle in front of Aerith glowing brightly.

Bugenhagen floated over and looked down at her in surprise. "Have you used Materia before my dear?"

"No," Aerith replied, shaking her head. "When I followed your instructions though it just felt completely natural and then the candle lit up."

"I see…" Bugenhagen mused. "Such amazing natural talent, quite impressive." He reached into a pouch on the jacket he was wearing and handed Aerith another Materia that looked identical to the one she was already holding.

"This is an ice Materia," he explained. "Use it to put out the candle and then continue to rotate between the two. You seem to have a firm grasp of basic energy but extra practice never hurt," he said with a smile.

Turning to the rest of the class he frowned. "I don't see why you're just staring, if you want to light your candles and get your next Materia you better get to work!"

Cloud returned his focus to his own Materia, but for the rest of the class he and all the other students minus Aerith were unable to create so much as a spark. When the bell rang signaling the end of class Bugenhagen gestured for them to stay sitting as he turned the lights back on.

"There are a few things I need to say before you all rush off back home," he explained. "First, don't get discouraged. It takes a while to learn how to use Materia, but once you get the hang of it the pace picks up quickly. I want you all to practice hard and by next class be able to light your candles. Second, you actually aren't quite done for the day yet. I can't explain why, but you all need to head to the gym for a special event."

Cloud could tell from the surprised whispers coming from other kids that something like this had never happened on the first day of class before.

'_I wonder what this is about…'_

As the class entered the gym they were surprised to see Barret standing there, holding what looked like a black box. Behind him were their other teachers, Reeve, Cid, and even Bugenhagen had somehow managed to beat them there. Sephiroth was already there as well, sitting on the floor in front of the teachers.

Barret gestured for them to sit on the floor as well before he spoke. "I'm sure you're all wondering what the hell is going on," he said, continuing when he saw their nods. "This year we've changed the way tests are going to work, it's going to be like nothing you've ever done before and we hope not only will they be more enjoyable but you'll learn a lot more from them."

Cloud could tell from his feelings as well as the other student's faces they weren't too enthusiastic about new tests.

"We're going to leave it a mystery until the first one," Barret said grinning evilly. "We don't want you to start preparing in advance. However, we do need to reveal one part today, you will be taking all of your tests and finals in pairs."

This statement caused the class to erupt into noise as people lunged towards each other trying to claim partners. Cloud knew who he _wanted_ to partner with but he also knew that wasn't going to happen. Instead he glanced over at Vincent who seemed to be the only one still calmly sitting there and received a nod in response.

"Calm the fuck down!" Barret yelled, glaring at them all. "I never said you'd get to pick your partners! We're going to call out names randomly and those students will come up in turn and draw a name from this box, that person will be their partner for the rest of the year."

Grumbling angrily the class settled down and watched as the first student, a girl Cloud didn't know, walked up and drew a piece of paper from the box. She called out a name he didn't recognize and another girl stood up and walked over to her smiling. The two of them moved off to the side and sat down next to each other away from the group.

'_I just hope I get someone I know…'_

"Tifa," Cid called out.

Cloud watched as she stood up and went to draw a name.

"Vincent…" Tifa called out, looking at him slightly surprised as he stood up and went to join her. The two of them joined the others who had already picked but didn't talk.

As the pairing went on Cloud largely ignored most of the names since he didn't already know them. Rufus was paired with Elena, Reno with Rude, and then…

"Zack," Bugenhagen called.

Cloud watched as the boy shot a smile over at Aerith before walking up and picking a name. He looked at it for a while before saying who it was. "Tseng."

There were only fifteen student's left now and the only ones Cloud still knew were Aerith and Sephiroth.

'_Wait, fifteen? We have one too many to perfectly match up, what happens to the last student?' _Cloud thought worriedly.

"Sephiroth," Barret called out, breaking Cloud's thoughts.

'_Alright, I lied before, this is one person I know I definitely _don't_ want as a partner.'_

Sephiroth walked up and drew a name from the box but he just stared at it without saying anything.

"Well?" Barret growled, prodding him with his gun arm.

"It's blank," Sephiroth said in a low voice, "There is no name."

By the shocked looks on the teachers face's this wasn't supposed to have happened.

"I know I didn't put in a blank piece," Bugenhagen said.

"What do we do?" Cid asked.

"Fuck," cursed Barret.

To Cloud's surprise he saw Sephiroth point at him. "It's his fault. The new student made us odd."

'_Yah… he hates me now alright…'_

"It doesn't matter to me, however," Sephiroth continued, "I'd rather work alone then with any of these weaklings," he said as he walked over to join the rest of the students who had already picked.

The teachers went over to a corner where they spoke privately for a while before they came back.

"We will continue," Reeve announced. "Aerith, please come pick a name."

Cloud felt a knot tie itself in his stomach. This was the last person he knew as well as the person he really wanted to partner with. He watched as she reached in the box and slowly drew out a piece of paper. She looked at it in confusion before he saw realization spread through her eyes.

"Cloud," she heard herself say. At first she hadn't recognized the name but then she realized who it was.

'_That new student…'_

She watched as he slowly stood up, surprise clearly evident in his eyes as well. She noticed they were a bright sapphire blue, something she hadn't realized till then as she hadn't really been paying much attention to him that day. He had spiky blond hair and was dressed entirely in black. His shirt had a left sleeve but no right sleeve for some reason and there was a shoulder pad on his left shoulder as well. His pants were baggy , but tucked into his boots like Sephiroth's.

'_Well I was hoping for Tifa or even maybe Zack, but I suppose this will have to do.'_

She smiled softly at him as he walked up to her and was surprised to see his cheeks redden slightly, causing her to blush a little bit as well. They walked over to the group of paired students and stood next to each other in silence as the rest of the class paired up.

* * *

Cloud was in a daze. Sure, he had _hoped_ to be partnered with her but now that he actually was he couldn't believe it. By the looks of jealousy some of the other guys were shooting at him he could tell they were wishing to be in his place. He noticed Zack in particular shooting him a rather nasty look.

"Get to know your partners well," Barret announced. "Practice and learn together, on tests you will be working together and you will be graded together so you gain nothing if you refuse to take advantage of that. That's all for today, we'll see you later," he finished and the teachers left the gym.

Cloud was still deep in thought as Tifa and Vincent walked over to join them.

"Wanna trade partners?" Tifa asked teasingly, making sure the other three knew she was just joking. "I think Vince and I will do just fine though," she continued. "He can blast things from far away and if anything makes it too close I can beat the living daylights out of em."

Cloud saw Vincent's eyebrows raise and his eyes widen in surprise at what he assumed was directed both at the nickname as well as the unexpected praise.

Not noticing the effect her words had had on Vincent Tifa continued. "And you two will make a perfect group too!" she exclaimed. "Cloud's a great swordsman and you just proved that you're excellent with Materia, Aerith!"

Both of them reddened slightly at the praise and thanked her before Aerith made the suggestion that they head to the parking lot to go back home.

"I'm exhausted, I can't believe we have to go through this much school each day," Cloud thought.

"Oh, didn't you know?" Aerith responded. "We only have school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the other days we have off to study and review."

"Oh right, I forgot to mention that part," Vincent added as they walked through the doors of the school.

Cloud was surprised at these responses until he realized that he was so tired he had actually spoken his thoughts out loud.

"Well my car is over there," Tifa said pointing over to the left. "Lets share phone numbers Vince so we can contact each other about meeting sometime tomorrow okay?"

Vincent nodded in agreement. "I'm parked over there as well," he said as he pulled out his cell phone and walked away with Tifa after they had both said bye to Cloud and Aerith.

"My bike's over there," Cloud said pointing. "Where did you park?"

"I'm actually that car right next to you," Aerith said in surprise as they both headed over to their vehicles.

"I uh… guess we should share phone numbers as well," Cloud said, breaking the silence once they had reached her car.

"Sure," Aerith replied as she pulled out her phone and gave Cloud her number while storing his own.

"I guess I'll see you sometime tomorrow then?" Cloud asked, once he had finished entering her number into his phone.

"Don't get any ideas," he heard a voice growl behind him as he felt something sharp poke into his back.

"Zack!" Aerith exclaimed, "What do you think your doing?"

"You don't seem very upset to be partnered with this new guy," Zack replied, not removing the point of his sword from Cloud's back.

Deciding it was better not to get involved, Cloud simply stood there as the two talked through him.

"Should I be?" Aerith asked, a hint of anger entering her voice. "Cloud's done nothing wrong, why are you so angry at him?"

'_Zack isn't… jealous is he?' _Aerith thought.

"I'm not angry at him," Zack lied. "I was just wondering why you took this so in stride and didn't even try to change partners. I talked with Tseng and he doesn't care if he's with me or Cloud."

'_He is!'_ she realized.

"I'm sure we can't change our partners Zack," she replied. "That's why we had to randomly draw names. I'm sorry I'm not your partner but there's really nothing I can do about it. Besides, it's not like I can't still help you out," she finished.

"Well Cloud here had better not get any ideas," Zack said, removing his sword from Cloud's back to his relief. "Lay one finger on her though or anything else for that matter and I'll cut it off," he threatened.

"ZACK!" Aerith yelled mortified, her face going completely red.

"I'm just warning him," Zack smirked as he walked around Cloud to stand in front of her. He bent down slightly to kiss her cheek but she turned her head and gently shoved him away.

"I'll… see you later you two," she said as she unlocked her car and got in the drivers seat before turning it on and backing out of her spot.

"Don't forget what I said Cloud," Zack called back over his shoulder as he walked to his car.

'_Well that certainly was a rather interesting end to a remarkable day,' _Cloud thought as he lowered his shades and hopped on Fenrir. _'I wonder what tomorrow has in store for me,'_ he thought as he revved the engine and headed back home.

* * *

**End Note: I know it's long, too long but I couldn't find a good place to cut it in half really. I can most certainly promise future chapters won't be this long. I hope you enjoyed it though and please take a few seconds to leave a review letting me know what you think. I don't normally do stuff like this, but in this case based on the amount of reviews this chapter gets I'll decide if I want to continue the story or not. Presently I really don't have a lot of free time so I'd prefer not to write something that no one is interested in.**

**I must apologize to all my readers. Due to various reasons I'm not going to be updating this fic for a very long time, possibly never, I'm really not sure. And it's not because of too few reviews (Many thanks to those who have left them, I really appreciate hearing from you), I just realized that right now I don't have the time amoung other things to be writting a massive chapter fic. I do hope to get a few one shots out though.**

**As of 11/09/07 I am back to working on this fic, expect an update soon ;)**


	2. The Park

**I want to apologize to those of you who have waited five months for this chapter, thank you so much for your patience. I've finally got a bit more time on my hands now, enough that I think I should be able to somewhat regularly update again.**

* * *

**Chapter 2: The Park**

Cloud reached over and hit his alarm clock, causing it turn off and crash to the floor as he yawned and blinked his eyes. After lying there for a few more minutes he finally threw off the sheets and stumbled to his feet, still not entirely awake. The cold water from his shower finished waking him up, however, and he started to think about what he'd do on his first day off.

'_I should definitely go training with Aerith, although calling her this early might seem a little strange. Maybe I'll try calling Vincent and see what he's up to."_

Having made up his mind, Cloud walked over to where he had left his phone next to his bed and dialed Vincent's number. After a few rings Cloud heard Vincent pick up on the other end.

"Hey Vincent it's me Cloud, I was just calling to see if you had any plans for today or anything?"

"Oh, hey Cloud. I'm actually pretty busy today, sorry. Gotta do a bunch of stuff with my family this morning and then this afternoon I'm going to the park to do some training with Tifa. What about you and Aerith, shouldn't you guys be training as well?"

"Oh… uh well yah I suppose so…" Cloud responded awkwardly, still worried about calling up the girl in question. '_What if she just brushes me off to go training with that Zack guy instead?'_

"You almost sound as if you're afraid of Aerith!" Vincent replied, clearly amused. "Trust me Cloud, if you're going to be her partner this entire year you need to get over that and just call her up. If you want set it up so you're there this afternoon we can train together or something. Anyways, I've got to go, good luck!" With that Cloud heard Vincent hang up and stared at the phone in surprise for a second.

'_Well…. I suppose he does have a point, I guess I should give her a call,_' Cloud thought as he brought up her number.

* * *

Aerith had been awake for a while, lying in bed and just staring at the ceiling, thinking. She knew she should have gotten up a while ago, but for some reason she just couldn't stop thinking about what had happened yesterday.

Zack had clearly been expressing interest in her lately, over summer break the two of them along with Tifa had spent a lot of time together and she'd definitely started to return his feelings. But then suddenly, yesterday, with the appearance of this new kid, Cloud, someone she didn't even know, Aerith had felt something strange when she looked at him.

'_Perhaps it's just because the two of them look so similar…'_

The sound of her cell ringing startled her and she reached over to her bedside table to grab the phone, glancing at the number to see who it was.

'_Could it possibly be Cloud…?'_

But it was just Tifa.

"Heya Aerith, Vince and I were planning on doing some training in the park this afternoon, I was wondering if you and the new kid had any plans yet or if you wanted to join us?" Tifa asked.

"Oh… well I haven't called him yet so…"

"What? Don't tell me _you're_ being the shy one!" Tifa interrupted, giggling.

"Of… of course not!" Aerith exclaimed in embarrassment. "I just woke up a few minutes ago, that's all. I was about to call him when you called me," she lied.

"Well in that case I guess I'll see you this afternoon at the park and I'll get off the line now so you can call up your sweetheart," Tifa replied teasingly.

"Tif!! He's not my sweetheart!" Aerith cried out, mortified, before she realized that her friend had already hung up.

'_She's got a point though,_ Aerith thought reluctantly as she brought up Cloud's number, _'nothing's going to happen if we don't get to know each other.'_

* * *

Cloud was sitting on the end of his bed staring at his phone. He'd been sitting there for a couple of minutes, just staring at the number, trying to build up the nerve to hit the send button.

'_Worst-case scenario she says no right? That's not so bad. I just end up training on my own and I'm sure we'll still do fine on the tests. She trains with Zack, I train on my own. That's okay…. right?'_ Deep down inside, however, Cloud knew he was lying, he wanted to be the one training with Aerith.

"Geeze, what's wrong with me!?" Cloud exclaimed out-loud angrily as he made up his mind and finally pressed the call button.

* * *

Aerith stared down at the number on her phone, not exactly sure why she was hesitating.

'_This is pathetic, get a hold of yourself and just call him!'_

Closing her eyes she pressed the call button and raised the phone to her ear, waiting for Cloud to pick up. To her surprise, however, the phone didn't ring, all she got was a busy signal.

'_Whew,' _she thought with relief, falling backwards to lie on her bed, _'he must be talking with Vincent or something, I'll try again later.'_

* * *

'_Whew,' _Cloud thought as he heard the busy signal, _'she must be talking with Tifa, I guess I'll try again later.'_

Cloud went downstairs to eat breakfast while passing the time, figuring that if it was indeed Tifa on the phone with her, Aerith would be occupied for at least an hour. Once he decided that he had given them enough time, he tried calling her back and was slightly surprised to hear the phone ring this time. Gulping nervously, he cleared his throat as he heard her pick up her phone.

"Heya Cloud, what's up?" Aerith asked, trying not to sound nervous as she answered her phone.

"Not much, I was uh… just wondering if you wanted to get together sometime today and do some training. Or something."

'_Or something, very smooth idiot,'_ Cloud thought.

Aerith giggled softly, putting her hand over the phone so Cloud wouldn't hear. "Sure that sounds good," she replied "How about around one this afternoon after lunch, Tifa said she'd be there with Vincent as well."

"That sounds great, I'm looking forward to it."

"Oh, and Cloud? Sorry about what Zack said yesterday…"

"There's no need for you to apologize," Cloud replied. "What happened was Zack's fault, not yours. Never take the blame of others and make it your own."

Aerith blinked in surprise for a moment before responding. "You're right Cloud, thanks. I guess I'll see you in a bit then."

'_Well that went better then I expected,' _Cloud thought as he hung up and put his phone back in his pocket. Glancing at the time he saw that he had an hour until he needed to be at the park. It was about a half hour drive away, and seeing as how he couldn't think of anything better to do, Cloud decided he might as well head over early.

To his surprise, when he arrived at the parking lot he noticed Aerith's car and saw her sitting on a bench a few feet away. Seeing him as well, she stood up and waved as he walked over.

"Looks like we both showed up a bit early, want to start training before Tifa and Vincent show up or just wait?" Cloud asked.

"We might as well start, you really need practice with Materia from what I saw and I know I need more practice at using my staff."

Together they headed to an isolated hill where they could practice safely and not potentially hurt any children who might be running around.

"Should we start with Materia training?" Aerith asked. "It sounded like we won't get new Materia until we've managed to use the one we're currently working on. It would be a good idea to have as many as possible before the first test I'd imagine."

"Sounds good to me, I wasn't able to do anything with mine during class and you seemed really good at it."

She blushed softly at his complement as they sat down and pulled out a candle she had brought with her. "Just like in class close your eyes, try and focus your thoughts through the Materia into the candle's wick and imagine a flame."

Cloud sat there for a while becoming more and more frustrated as nothing happened. "It just doesn't work!" he exclaimed angrily, opening his eyes and glaring at the candle as if it was somehow its fault.

"You need to be calm and clear your mind of everything, try again and I'll see if I can help a bit more."

Cloud nodded once before closing his eyes again.

"Now empty your mind of everything," Aerith said softly, "Just imagine a field of black and floating in the middle the green sphere of the Materia."

Cloud did exactly as she said, actually managing to clear his head as he listened to her voice. '_Strawberries… she smells like strawberries,'_ he thought faintly.

"Now inside the green sphere picture the candle except light the wick as well."

Again Cloud did what she told him to, but he could tell from her lack of a response that the real candle was still unlit. Frustrated, he tried harder, making the flame in his mind larger. He nearly jumped in surprise when he felt her hands grab his and squeeze them gently. _'Her hands are so soft!"_

At her gasp of surprise he opened his eyes and was shocked to see the candle was lit. "You did it!" she exclaimed happily, smiling at him.

"Only with your help though," Cloud replied, somewhat dejectedly.

"Oh? And is my help that unwelcome?"

"No of course not!" he hurried to clarify. "Lets keep going until I can do it on my own though.

They spent the next twenty minutes lighting and re-lighting the candle until Cloud finally managed to do it once on his own. By that point he was exhausted so he suggested they move on to working with her staff.

"First lets see your stance, a good fighting stance can mean everything in a battle."

Nodding she slipped on some light gloves, picked up her staff and stood up, gripping the weapon tightly and entering the fighting stance Tifa had taught her. "How's this?"

Cloud walked around her, stopping behind her before replying. "Not too bad although you definitely have a few openings. Did Tifa teach you this?"

"How did you know?" she asked in surprise.

"It's a fist fighters stance, not a staff wielders. Thankfully the two forms are somewhat similar so it should be pretty easy to make you a decent fighter. First we need to work on how you hold the staff though.

To her surprise she felt him stand right behind her and wrap his arms around her to hold onto the staff as well. _'Omigosh, no he's not hugging me, he's helping with my stance. Not hugging me.'_

'_Wow… am I seriously _hugging_ her!? No, wait, focus Cloud. She'd _kill_ you if you were. Focus on the weapon.'_

'_It feels comfortable… and so natural…' _"Um… Cloud? How am I supposed to hold it?"

'_Right.'_ "You just need to change your grip a bit, like this. And don't quite grip it so hard, it looks like you're trying to strangle your staff or something." He smiled when he heard her giggle at his comment. _'Good it looks like she's not going to kill me…'_

"What the hell do you think you're doing you bastard?" a voice called out from behind them.

They turned around together, Cloud stepping away quickly when he saw that it was Zack.

'_Although he looks ready for murder…'_

"I thought I fucking told you not to touch her!" Zack yelled at him, taking two steps forward.

"Zack, he was just…"

"I'm not talking to you Aerith, I'm talking to the new student who was taking advantage of you!"

Aerith stopped talking in shock and glared at Zack.

"Why are you being such a jerk to Aerith?" Cloud asked angrily. "She didn't do anything wrong, I was just showing her how to better hold her staff."

"Oh? And why would you need to do that?"

"So she can fight better, we're training like you should be with Tseng."

Zack dismissed Cloud's comment with a flick of his hand as Aerith addressed him again. "Why are you even here Zack? Cloud has a point, you should be with Tseng training."

Zack laughed. "We don't need to train, neither of us is worried about some silly test. Last year's were easy enough, and if we get to work together on these they're only going to be even easier. Anyways, Aerith doesn't need to be better with her staff, I'll protect her from anyone who would hurt her. Especially _you_."

"In case you forgot_I'm_ her partner, not you, so _I'll_ be the one to protect her."

"I think I'm _quite_ capable of protecting myself thank you!" Aerith retorted angrily, now holding a Materia in one hand, as the air surrounding the three of them suddenly got much colder. Having no desire to continue watching this… _manly strutting_ Aerith spun around and stalked off, upset at both Cloud and Zack. _'Boys are so stupid!'_

"Listen Zack, I don't know what your problem with me is, but I don't have anything against you. Can't we just be friends? Or at least not enemies?"

"I don't want to be your friend. You're stealing Aerith away from me, I can tell already. Why don't we just settle this with a duel?"

"A duel!? Aerith isn't an object for us to fight over and possess! I don't understand you, I just want to be her friend."

"Whose friend? What's going on here and where's Aerith?" Tifa demanded as she walked up with Vincent.

Cloud gestured in the direction Aerith had left in and Tifa rushed off, shooting an angry look at him and Zack. _'Great, everyone seems pissed off at me and I haven't done anything.'_

"Watch yourself Cloud, the other students may be impressed that you held Sephiroth off, but I'm not afraid of you," Zack said before turning around and heading back to the parking lot.

Vincent looked at Cloud in amusement, but said nothing.

"Common Vincent, lets go find the girls. Hopefully we can just put this little fiasco behind us.

They found Tifa and Aerith sitting on a bench not far away. As they drew closer Tifa stood up and walked toward them.

"Uh Cloud… based off that look in her eyes you might want to…"

Whatever Vincent was about to say was cut short as Tifa lunged forward and punched Cloud in the stomach. Hard.

Cloud dropped to one knee and struggled to draw a breath. _'_Damn _she hits hard… and she's good enough to hit and make it hurt, but not cause any real damage."_

"I suppose I deserved that?"

"You're not to blame as much as Zack, but yes, it's still partially your fault. Besides, he isn't here for me to hit."

Cloud laughed a bit, able to breathe normally again. "I guess I can accept that then. You alright Aerith?"

"I fine, I don't really feel like more training today though. I'll see you guys at school tomorrow."

He could clearly tell she was upset so he didn't follow her back to the lot right away. After a few minutes of watching Vincent and Tifa train he said his farewells as well and went home, looking forward to tomorrow when he'd be able to see Aerith again. He hoped she wouldn't still be upset with him.

* * *

**End Note: I want to stress that I know Zack is being really damn annoying. I don't plan to continue this for much longer, he's going to come to a turning point eventually so please bare with me. Other then that I hope you're enjoying the story, please leave a review to let me know what you think. I hope to have the next chapter out soon although due to its nature and content it's probably going to be long and potentially difficult to write. I'll give you the title though, as a sneak peek into what it's going to be about ;)**

**Next Chapter:**** First Test**


	3. First Test

**Ha ha, okay, so another apology is in order. It's been like ten months now and for that I'm sorry. Most people have probably given up on the story by this point. It's mainly my fault, but it's also hard to find incentive to write without feedback. I'd really like to hear what people think about the story. Anyways, the next few months should be pretty open so I hope to get a few more chapters of this posted up.**

* * *

**Chapter 3: First Test**

A week and three days had passed since the incident in the park and Cloud was exhausted. Even though they only had class every other day, he felt like his head was going to explode. Not only did they have normal homework from the morning classes, such as English and Math, they also had assignments in both fighting and Materia. Cloud had been hoping to spend a lot more time working on all the homework with Aerith, but since the park she'd been rushing home as soon as school ended and he hadn't built up the nerve to call her. He didn't really think he was at fault, but he figured the best thing to do was wait until she was ready to call him.

'_At least it's a Friday.'_ Knowing how hard the students ended up working during the week, the teachers were generally fairly forgiving with the amount of work they assigned over the weekend. Seeing his friend's cars already in the parking lot Cloud hurried inside, eager to get a seat next to them.

"We've got something very special planned for you instead of the normal afternoon classes," Reeve announced after the bell had rung. "Instead of heading to Cid's class like you normally do, please meet in the gym for an announcement." Ignoring the storm of questions that followed, Reeve turned and began writing math equations on the board.

"What do you think it is?" Cloud leaned over and whispered to Vincent.

"Not a clue, we've never had something like this happen before, maybe it's just some new Friday only class."

Curious, Cloud could do nothing but pay attention and take notes while waiting for lunch to finally arrive. He did notice Aerith and Tifa whispering together a few seats over, however, and most of the class seemed to be paying less attention then normal.

The bell signaling the end of morning classes finally rang, and everyone rushed out of the room, eager to eat lunch so they could find out what the surprise was. Cloud and Vincent went to their usual table and started eating while talking about what the teachers could possibly have planned.

"Wow, incoming," Vincent said suddenly, cutting off what Cloud had been saying.

Cloud glanced over and was shocked to see Aerith and Tifa walking towards them.

"Hey guys, mind if we join you?" Tifa asked.

"Not at all," Cloud replied, glancing at Aerith curiously.

She sat down opposite him and took a few bites of her sandwich before looking directly at him. "I'm sorry Cloud, I've been pretty rude to you this last week. You didn't even really do anything wrong, I was just so angry at Zack. Will you forgive me?"

Cloud smiled. "Of course I forgive you, I figured you just needed some time to yourself and I didn't want to risk being burnt or frozen by trying to pressure you." The four of them burst into laughter.

"You guys seem to be having fun," a new voice said behind him and Cloud turned around to see Yuffie standing there. She winked at them and sat down next to Aerith. "So I heard you guys have something special this afternoon, any idea what it might be?"

"No idea," Cloud replied glumly. "What about you girls?" he asked.

Aerith and Tifa glanced at each other before leaning in. "Do you remember what the teachers said on the first day?" Aerith whispered. "They said the main reason we were all paired off was for the new tests… Maybe one of those is today."

"What!? A test already!?" Cloud exclaimed in horror.

"Oh wow, I so don't envy you guys," Yuffie said, trying her hardest not to giggle.

"Well we've only had two weeks of school," Vincent said, "It's not like it could be that hard of a test."

"Hopefully," Tifa muttered.

The four of them finished their meal and said goodbye to Yuffie before heading to the gym with the rest of the class. To their surprise they found a bunch of weird tables with what looked like four Materia imbedded in the top. Each table also had two chairs, one on either side of the table. Barret was standing in the room along with the rest of their teachers and he beckoned the students to join them.

"As some of you may have guessed by now we're going to be having a pop test," he explained.

"What?!"

"No way!"

"Already?"

"Shut the hell up!" Barret roared, quickly quieting the class. "This is going to be an introduction test, mainly to teach you how the new system is going to work. You're still going to be graded of course, but the main point here is just to prepare you guys for future tests."

"What's with the weird tables?" Zack asked.

"Those are the new testing system," Barret explained. "Bugenhagen will explain them more in a moment. Before that, however, I want to discuss the general rules."

"As we explained on the first day of class you will be taking your tests in the pairs we already assigned. Hopefully you've been working with your partners over the past two weeks and gotten to know them well. Cooperation and coordination during the tests will be critical."

Cloud glanced over at Aerith guiltily and caught her looking at him in the same way. The only time they'd worked together had been that day at the park.

"There are, of course, a few rules you have to follow," Barret continued. "The test in itself is similar to a maze. Each team will begin at some part along the outside and your goal is to reach the center. Various obstacles will block the way and you'll have to work together to figure out how to proceed. It is also important to note that each team will have to cover the exact same amount of ground to reach the center. The difference between paths when they split is simply the obstacle blocking you. If you find yourself stuck on a puzzle too long it may be wise to back track to the last intersection and attempt the one along the other path."

"You will be graded on both performance and speed, so you're not free to take as much time as you want, while at the same time you can't afford to be sloppy. In addition, since it is a singular maze there is a chance that you m ay run into another team during the process. Teaming up with them is permitted, although I will warn you that while teamed up the average score of both teams will be awarded to each team. This means that a strong team will most likely lose points for teaming up with a weaker one, although it depends mostly on the situation."

"Sabotage is strictly forbidden. If two teams meet up and decide not to work together they must either wait for one of the teams to finish first or backtrack. Along with this, any attempts to cheat and bring in additional Materia or weapons will result in an automatic failing grade. Other then what I've listed you're free to do whatever you want. Are there any questions?"

"Are we only being tested on afternoon class-work then?" Cloud asked.

"No," Reeve responded, "approximately half of the test will be from morning class lectures, so I hope you all have been paying attention and doing your homework."

Seeing that there were no more questions, Barret gestured for Bugenhagen to come forward.

"As Barret mentioned the tables around the room will be how you are tested. All you have to do is sit down and place a hand on each of the Materia in front of you. You'll find yourself along with your partner at the start of the maze and when the signal is given you may begin. Now, please take your seats and enter the maze."

"This sounds like it should be interesting," Cloud said to Aerith as they walked over to the nearest table.

"I'm so glad I've done all the homework so far, you have too right Cloud?"

"Err, yah, of course I have," Cloud lied. In reality he'd done most if it, although he'd spent the previous day just relaxing around the house since he was so burned out. _'Ugh, it figures the day I decide to be lazy comes back and makes me regret it.'_

Together they sat down and placed their hands on the Materia, unprepared for the wave of blackness that suddenly engulfed them.

* * *

Aerith woke up to find herself lying on the floor of a dark stone room lit by a single flickering torch. Another shape not far away was moving, and she realized it was Cloud.

'_Was this supposed to happen?'_

Standing up she noticed her staff lying on the ground next to where she had been laying. She reached down and strapped it to her back before walking over to see if Cloud was okay.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Yah I'm fine. It would have been nice if they told us to expect something like this," Cloud muttered.

"Maybe it's just part of the test. Or maybe something went wrong…"

"Well there's nothing we can do about it, where are we?"

"I'm not sure, I just woke up here a few seconds ago so I haven't taken a look around."

Together the two of them explored the small room they found themselves in, but it seemed like it was just a small square room without any way out. She noticed that Cloud had his hand on his sword the entire time.

"If this is part of the test then I have no idea how to get out of here," Cloud said angrily.

Glancing around one last time Aerith was surprised to see something on the wall opposite the torch. "Was that door there before?"

"No…" Cloud walked over cautiously and drew his sword. "Stay behind me, I'll go first."

Aerith smiled to herself and followed as Cloud opened the door and went through. On the other side they found a narrow hallway that lead into the distance lined with alternating torches on either side. After a while they came to a fork in the path, the two ways onward leading off at different angles.

"Which way?" Cloud asked her.

"Well Barret said it didn't really matter so I guess we just pick one. How about right?"

Cloud nodded and glanced back, smiling when he saw her holding her staff like he'd taught her. "Don't worry, no matter what happens I won't let you get hurt."

'_He's so cute.'_ "Thanks Cloud," she replied as they walked on.

A few minutes later they came to another small room except that this one had a table in the middle. There didn't seem to be any way on. Together they approached the table and saw a piece of paper lying on top of it.

"Who was the original founder of the Shinra Company?" it read.

"Ugh, a history question? I hate history," Cloud said. "Did we even cover this? I have no idea what the answer is."

"Actually you're right," Aerith said, slightly confused. "This is something we haven't covered in class. Thankfully it's pretty common knowledge around here. The Shinra Company hasn't been around all that long actually, the founder is Rufus' father. I don't know his name though, everyone just calls him President Shinra."

Her response seemed to be enough, however, as a door shimmered into existence on the wall opposite where they had entered the room.

"This isn't so bad," Cloud said, a little cockily as he continued on through the door.

Aerith did have to admit though, that so far things we're pretty easy. If all they had to do to reach the center was answer a series of questions it didn't seem like it could be that difficult.

"Remember we're being timed," she said. "Let's jog a bit."

Nodding, Cloud picked up the pace and they soon reached another room. Instead of a table with a piece of paper on it, however, there were nine pillars arranged in a square rising from the floor, each with a Materia on top. The Materia in the upper left was glowing blue, but all the others were red.

"What do you think we have to do?" Cloud asked. "Make them all the same color?"

"That seems like a good idea," Aerith replied. "You want to try first?"

Nodding confidently Cloud stepped forward. "Since they're red I'll assume that means it's a fire Materia."

She watched him concentrate for a while, but saw no noticeable effect on the Materia he was touching. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know, I'm trying to channel fire through it like we did with the candles, but it's just not responding at all."

"What if you try and use ice? That's the only other Materia we've learned to use in class, so if that doesn't work then we need to think of something different." She left it unsaid that she'd actually already mastered lightning as well outside of class.

"Okay, I'll try that, although I'm still really bad with ice." A moment later, however, the Materia Cloud was touching along with all the Materia next to it turned blue. "Wow, it worked!"

"So it looks like if you channel ice into one of the red orbs, it makes it and all the others around it except for the diagonals blue," Aerith explained.

"This'll be easy!" Cloud exclaimed, grabbing another red Materia and concentrating again. This time, however, the orb and the other red ones next to it turned blue, except the blue orb that was also next to it went back to red. "Errr, what?" Cloud asked in confusion.

"It looks like channeling into a Materia simply switches that one along with the surrounding ones to the opposite color."

They also quickly discovered that they had to channel fire into the blue orbs in order to get them and their surroundings to change color.

"So not only is it testing our ability to use Materia back to back, it's also testing our logic skills in order to figure out a pattern that will make all the orbs the same color. I assume they're all supposed to be blue since most of them started as red," Aerith concluded.

Grimacing, Cloud set about randomly changing colors, trying to get them to all change to blue through luck. After a few minutes Cloud realized he was back exactly where he started, with the upper left orb blue while the rest were once again red.

"I give up," he sighed as he slid to the floor. "All that energy channeled has wiped me out too."

Aerith stepped forward and looked at the puzzle for a while, before she reached down and began to change the orb's colors. She managed to solve it with only eight orb changes.

"Wow," Cloud said in shock, "that was seriously impressive Aerith!"

"It wasn't really that great," Aerith replied blushing.

To their relief, their assumptions had been correct and another door onwards appeared once all the orbs had turned blue. They ran down the next hallway to make up for lost time, and took another right path when a second fork appeared. A little later they came to yet another room, except this time instead of a small square it was more of a long hallway, about twice the width of the ones they'd been traveling so far.

As soon as they stepped inside the seemingly empty room, however, a large number of imps, skeletons, and zombies appeared out of nowhere and began approaching them.

"Now this is more my style!" Cloud exclaimed, pulling his sword from his back and charging the enemies.

Aerith grabbed her staff and chased after him, but by the time she caught up all the enemies were gone and the door onward had just finished appearing.

"That should make up for a bit of the time I wasted back in the other room," Cloud said happily as they continued on down the next hallway.

"I wonder if it's weird that we haven't run into anyone else yet."

"They're probably all just way behind us eating our dust," Cloud replied, giving her a huge grin.

'_I really, really like Cloud…'_ Aerith realized as she grinned back.

The next room they came to was identical to the first, another table with a piece of paper on it was waiting for them. This time it read, "What is the integral of four x cubed plus eight x squared minus five x plus 2?"

"What an easy math question, I've got this no problem," Cloud said with confidence. "The answer is twelve x squared plus sixteen x minus five."

"No!" Aerith cried out, but it was too late.

There was a large explosion and suddenly there was a red dragon in the room with them. Before either of them could do anything, it swept its tail around directly at Aerith. She felt it connect with her stomach, driving the wind out of her and sending her flying backwards to crash into the wall. Everything went black when her head struck the floor hard.

* * *

"Aerith! Aerith please don't die! Wake up!!" Cloud called desperately. _'I failed her! I may have killed her!"_

When her hand reached out and gently grabbed his arm and he saw her beautiful green eyes open, Cloud let out a sigh of relief.

"You gave the derivative silly, not the integral," Aerith said softly before breaking down giggling.

"How can you joke around when you're that badly hurt?" he asked as she slowly got to her feet.

"It's not too bad, although I'll be thankful to get out of here and see the school doctor."

"I failed you, I got you seriously hurt. Zack was right, he'd be better at protecting you."

She slapped him.

"Don't you dare discredit yourself like that. You did the best you could and obviously prevented that thing from killing both of us. If I hear any more garbage like that from you I'll slap you again."

Looking ashamed Cloud helped her to her feet and they continued on through the next door in silence. They only had to go a short way until they found a pure white door blocking their way. They opened it and everything was engulfed in white.

When he opened his eyes, Cloud found himself sitting at the table in the gym with Aerith opposite him blinking her eyes.

"Congratulations, you're the third team to finish."

Cloud looked over and saw Reeve approaching them. "How far behind were we?"

"Tifa and Vincent just finished about a minute before you guys, although Sephiroth finished around ten minutes ago, even solo. That's not really important though, do you guys want to know how you did?"

They nodded together and Reeve went on.

"You got an A for your first room, your second room would have been a B since Cloud wasted so much time randomly changing the colors, but Aerith set a new record of only eight touches to solve the puzzle which resulted in another A."

Cloud smiled broadly and gave Aerith a high five.

"The next room was an A as well, Cloud cut through those enemies quite professionally. Your final room was where everything fell apart."

Cloud looked down at the table, unable to meet Aerith's eyes. _'Damn it.'_

"Mixing up integrals and derivatives gave you guys a D for that room, although the fact that Cloud actually managed to defeat the red dragon boosted you up to a C. In the end with a third place finish your final grade for your first test… is an A, barely. Congratulations."

Cloud jumped a little when he felt Aerith's hand rest on his. "We did great Cloud, next time we'll even make sure to beat Sephiroth, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks Aerith."

"Now, I need to take Aerith to the doctor to see to her wounds. Cloud, please go over and wait with the other students who have finished, Barret wants to talk with everyone before people go home."

"Hey Cloud," Tifa greeted him as he walked over, "How'd things go? I can't believe we actually beat you guys. Wait, where's Aerith?"

"I totally messed up," Cloud muttered, shaking his head and looking at the floor.

"What the hell did you do to Aerith?!" Tifa growled as she jumped to her feet and grabbed his shirt by the neck.

"Stop it Tifa," Vincent said quietly, and to Cloud's surprise she actually let him go. "I'm sure they've talked it over and it's none of our business."

Tifa still glared at him, but she sat back down and together the four of them waited for the rest of the students to finish their test. Cloud was very confused when Zack and Tseng ended up finishing in second to last place. He did, however, notice Zack shooting Sephiroth a nasty glare, which was returned with an arrogant smirk.

'_I wonder what happened with them…'_

"Aerith you're okay!" Cloud heard Tifa shout out, and he glanced over to see Aerith walking towards them next to Barret. She broke off to join them when Barret turned to head to the front of the class.

"I'm fine," she whispered once she'd taken her seat next to Tifa. "One little Cura spell and I feel as good as new."

Before Tifa could ask why she'd needed such a strong heal Barret began speaking. "Now that you've all taken the trial test I hope you understand what the rest of the year is going to be like. Of course in the future the tests will be much harder, and there will be far more then simply four questions. I also hope you learned how serious these tests are, any injuries taken during them are quite real. Of course, if it ever came down to a life threatening situation teachers would immediately intervene, however we dearly hope such a situation never arises."

"To that end I ask you get to know your partners even better and continue to work together. In the future a single student will also not be able to carry the team through the entire test, both of you need to identify and strengthen your weaknesses. For now I know you're tired and you most likely don't want to be sitting here listening to me, so I'll end it here. Congratulations to you all and I look forward to the remaining school year. There's no homework, enjoy your weekend."

There was a thunderous cheer from the students at the final declaration and everyone jumped to their feet, excited to have an entire weekend free to do whatever they wanted.

"Party, Saturday night, my house!" yelled Rufus. "Guys only!"

"Party! Saturday night, my house!" Elena yelled back in response. "Girls only!"

Laughing, everyone headed to the parking lot.

"Hope to see you this weekend!" Cloud shouted to Aerith as he backed his motorcycle up.

"I'm sure we will," she responded smiling.

* * *

**End Note: I really liked this chapter. The entire story was in fact based around this entire testing concept, and the basic idea for this chapter is what created the entire story. With this chapter I was able to play around and figure out what I wanted to see in future tests, although I have to admit I'm worried about those chapters. It's going to be hard creating a longer, more difficult test that doesn't just drag along. The line breaks also didn't want to save for some reason so I was forced to use a double hyphen, hopefully that won't continue in the future.**

**In regards to the test itself the three by three Materia square puzzle is indeed solvable in only eight moves. It took me forever to design it, but the only other length I could find was three moves, which was far too short. Hopefully I explained the rules of that puzzle well enough to be understood. If someone can manage to solve it in less I'd love to hear about it, please e-mail me the solution. (Remember, UL i.e. Upper Left starts blue, the rest are all red.)**

**The integral question was included both because it amused me, and because it seemed like a good question for a High School math section. In case anyone was interested the correct answer is: x to the fourth plus eight thirds x cubed minus five halfs x squared plus two x plus an unknown constant.**

* * *

**Next Chapter:**** Guys Night/Girls Night**


	4. Guys Night, Girls Night

**Well it's not exactly a quick update by any means, but it's certainly better then the earlier chapters. :P Hopefully the rest of the chapters should come out on a more regular basis now, although college is just about to start up again, and I have no idea how heavy the workload is going to be this semester. I'm also not entirely positive about the exact direction this story is going in. This whole story was really spur of the moment in the middle of writing A Love Lost so I don't have an ending already planned out. Hopefully over the next few chapters I do have planned out something will start to clarify. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter 4 (Part 1): Guys Night**

It was around nine at night when Cloud arrived at Rufus' house for the party, and by the amount of cars already parked outside it seemed like he was the last one to get there. After parking Fenrir, Cloud walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell.

The house was incredibly nice Cloud observed, as he waited for someone to open the door. It had three stories above ground, and he imagined there was probably a basement as well. Together with the sprawling backyard, the entire property took up half of the entire block. By the light of the full moon, Cloud could faintly see the outlines of a full-length swimming pool as well as both a tennis court and a volleyball net.

_Well his father _is_ the head of Shinra, so I suppose it makes sense._

"There you are Cloud," Rufus said as he opened the door.

"Yah, sorry I'm late. I had to take care of a few things around the house and I completely lost track of the time."

"Don't worry about it," Rufus laughed, "you're only like ten minutes late. The real party doesn't even start for a few hours anyways."

Confused by Rufus' last comment, Cloud followed him to what he assumed was the living room where he found Vincent and the rest of the male Turks.

"What did you mean by the 'real party' Rufus?" Cloud asked as he sat down on the sofa next to Vincent.

"That's right!" Reno exclaimed, "Since Cloud's new around here he doesn't know about it."

"Last year after finals we did this same thing," Rufus explained. "I was just messing around, but Elena was annoyed and made her own party. Halfway through ours, we decided it would be a blast to raid the girls' party so in the end it turned into one party with everyone having a great time."

"Sounds interesting, but why don't we just all get together in the first place?" Cloud asked.

"It's more exciting this way, they don't really know when we're going to show up," Rufus replied.

Reno looked over at Cloud with a wicked grin, "Yup, who knows what we might catch them doing."

"They know we're coming," Zack sighed, "it's not like we're going to catch them naked having a pillow fight or anything."

"We can still hope though!" Reno responded dejectedly. "Oh boy, can you imagine the sight of that…"

Rufus rolled his eyes, "Anyways, the drinks and everything are all over at Elena's, I figured we'd head over in a bit, but first I want to hear from Zack and Tseng about what happened during their test. You guys took a lot longer then I expected."

"Sephiroth…" Tseng muttered angrily, clenching his hand into a fist.

Zack took it upon himself to clarify what had happened. "We were on our way to the third room when Sephiroth showed up behind us. He said he didn't want to wait on us to finish the next room so he proposed we team up and then go our separate ways at the next fork. Tseng said no, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have him help. I knew he was an ass, but I never thought he'd backstab us."

"When we saw all the enemies in the third room and realized it was a combat challenge Sephiroth had a wicked grin on his face. He unleashed this massive attack that instantly obliterated everything, except part of it 'accidentally' caught Tseng and I. In the end we took so long just because we had to recover after being hit by that move."

"What?!" Cloud exclaimed angrily. "There's no way that wasn't violating the rule stating that you can't sabotage another team!"

"How did Sephiroth not get a failing grade if he did that?" Reno asked.

"After we finished, Barret took us aside and told Tseng and I that Sephiroth had apologized. Apparently he hadn't intended to hit us as well and he'd lost control of the move since he wasn't used to it, total bullshit in other words. He did tell us that they'd warned Sephiroth if anything like that happened again he'd be expelled."

"That guy really pisses me off," Cloud muttered, and everyone else nodded in agreement.

"So Cloud, what happened on your test?" Rufus asked, changing the subject. "I heard Aerith got pretty beat up."

Cloud saw Zack frowning angrily, but he ignored it and explained what had happened with the integral and the resulting battle. When they heard about the math error everyone in the room, including Vincent and Rude neither of whom had spoken that night, burst into laughter. Even Zack looked slightly amused.

"She seems okay with what happened so I won't take it out on you," he explained.

"It seems like you've got a bit of competition for Aerith now though Zack," Reno called out. "Before it was only Sephiroth, but we all know she hates him."

"Sephiroth is interested in Aerith?" Cloud asked in shock.

Zack nodded. "He asked her out at the start of last year, I think it had only been two weeks since he'd transferred to the school. She turned him down instantly without even blinking an eye, saying something like, 'I'd never go out with someone as arrogant as you.' I still don't plan on letting you have her, however, Cloud."

"She's not your to give away," Cloud said angrily. "It's up to Aerith to choose."

"Why don't we go play some basketball?" Rufus suggested, sensing the rising tension. "It's still a little early, and maybe if we wait long enough they'll give up on us showing and have a naked pillow fight."

Reno punched him on the shoulder jokingly and they followed Rufus downstairs where they found yet another swimming pool along with a racquetball court and the basketball court.

Since there were seven of them they broke into two teams of three with Vincent saying he was totally fine sitting out, "I'm really not a fan of basketball."

In the end, Cloud, Zack, and Rufus managed to win by a single point. Reno and Rude made an amazing combo, but once Cloud and Zack started working together they quickly caught up to the other team.

As they walked back upstairs to get ready to leave, Cloud asked Rufus a question that had been on his mind for a while. "Why aren't we having the party here? This place is pretty amazing."

"Dad's having a business meeting," Rufus explained. "He said it would be fine if we hung out here for a while, but he doesn't want the distraction of ten teenagers getting drunk and making a ton of noise. Elena's parents are out of town for the weekend, and her house is pretty good as well."

"Elena's place is great," Reno agreed. "She has an amazing bar setup in the living room and there's a hot tub out back on the porch. It's a great party place."

A few minutes later they all left the house and headed for their cars. "Naked pillow fight here we come!" Reno yelled.

"You'd be lucky to even see one of them in their underwear!" Rufus shouted back, and everyone laughed.

* * *

**Chapter 4 (Part 2): Girls Night**

Aerith smiled as Elena opened the door. "That black dress looks great on you Elena!"

"Thanks Aerith, you look beautiful as well," Elena replied, wishing she could wear pink as well as Aerith could. "Tifa's already getting stuff ready at the bar, Yuffie said she'd try and show up, but she isn't here yet."

The two girls walked to the living room together where they found Tifa collapsing onto one of the large sofas as she let out a long sigh.

"Tired already?" Aerith teased as she sat down next to her friend.

"Just enjoying the peace and quiet while it lasts," Tifa explained. "It's going to be really busy in a few hours."

"I can help at the bar if you want Tifa," Elena told her, sitting down as well. "I'm nowhere near as good as you are with drinks, but some help should be better then nothing right?"

"Na, that's okay," Tifa replied, smiling to show she appreciated the thought. "I really love doing it, even if it is a lot of work. You Turks are always the worst though," she said playfully.

"Hey, there's always Cloud, who knows what kind of drinks he likes." Almost as an afterthought she turned to Aerith. "Do you know what he likes?"

"We've been studying together, not drinking together!" Aerith exclaimed in embarrassment, blushing slightly.

Tifa was about to reply when they were interrupted by the doorbell. "Are the boys here already?"

"It's a little early," Elena said in confusion. "Rufus told me they were going to hang out at his place for a while, but I suppose they could have gotten desperate for our company."

Together the three of them went to the front door, but when they opened it they found Yuffie on the other side instead of the boys.

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late," Yuffie apologized. "My parents threw a fit when I told them I was going to the Senior's party. Apparently they think you guys are gonna get all drugged up and die or something. I had to wait for them to fall asleep before sneaking out my window."

"It's only nine, your parent's are asleep already?" Tifa asked.

"They're weird," Yuffie complained, shaking her head and leaving it at that.

As they sat down once again in the living room, Elena continued the conversation from where they'd left off. "So Aerith, how are things going with Cloud?"

"Err, what?" the flustered girl replied. "We're just friends!"

"Friends huh? Well if you don't make your move soon someone else might grab him before you can. I think I saw Yuffie eyeing him the other day in fact…"

This time it was the younger girl's turn to blush and start stammering. "Cloud? I mean sure, he's pretty handsome, really handsome actually, but he's a grade higher and I thought Aerith…"

"How are things with Vincent, Tifa?" Aerith asked, trying to change the topic of conversation from Cloud. Aerith wasn't entirely sure where her relationship with Cloud was at. She knew that she really liked him a lot, but she wasn't entirely sure of what he thought of her.

Tifa blinked in surprise before responding. "Unlike you and Cloud, Vincent and I really are just friends which is exactly what we both want. He's actually a great guy, I wish we'd gotten to know him sooner then our last year."

"I don't know why you guys think there's something going on between me and Cloud. Yes, I've come to really like him a lot over these past two weeks, but I don't really know what he thinks about me and then there's also Zack… I'm just really confused right now."

"So there's something going on with Zack then?" Elena asked.

"No! There's nothing going on with Zack either." Technically she and Zack weren't even dating although they had talked about it once. She'd gone out to the movies with him once last summer, but they hadn't even kissed yet.

Bored, Elena turned to Tifa. "Well if you're not interested in Vincent, then who _are_ you interested in?"

"Well if Aerith doesn't go for Cloud soon then maybe him, otherwise… Rufus?" She blushed slightly as she spoke the second name.

None of the other girls were very surprised, however, they'd all known that Tifa had had a crush on Rufus since the beginning of their last school year. Because of his status as the son of the president of Shinra, Tifa had never actually made her feelings known, but since Elena was interested in Tseng, Rufus was still considered available.

"Why do you guys think there's something going on between Cloud and I?" Aerith asked.

"Well we've known you for four years now, so it was pretty easy to tell you had feelings for him," Elena explained. "And he's most certainly interested in you, I'm actually a little surprised you hadn't noticed."

The other girls nodded in confirmation. "He hasn't been able to keep his eyes off you in class this entire last week," Tifa added. "Although it's not entirely surprising you haven't noticed, you're always so absorbed in your class-work."

"I think you two would make a great couple," Elena said. "You should really make an effort to talk with him a lot tonight."

Tifa nodded in agreement. "We'll do our best to help too, I'm sure Zack is going to be all over you."

"Thanks a ton guys," Aerith said smiling. "Things have gotten awkward around Zack lately, he's actually been really annoying, and I'd love a chance to relax with Cloud."

"I think the boys are here," Yuffie called out from her seat by the window. "That's Rufus' car and I see Cloud on his bike."

"Alright, lets go greet them and get this party started!" Elena shouted.

* * *

**I actually like this chapter a lot more then I thought I would. At first I only had Guys Night and the chapter was only a little over a thousand words, which really bothered me. I was originally planning on giving the guys and girls their own separate chapters, but I scraped the entire girls chapter when I realized I didn't have enough to write. Combining the two into a single chapter with separate parts worked really well though I think. I also came up with a lot more plot while writing this chapter, which is really good. To anyone opposed to the Tifa/Rufus pairing I'm sorry, it won't be a large part of the story by any means, I just wanted to pair her up instead of leaving her sad and alone. Elena/Tseng should be even more minor.**

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**Next Chapter:**** The Party**


	5. The Party

**Special surprise! An update within a week! It's a little disheartening to see SO many hits for the story and only a very small fraction of those people reviewing, but at least I know a bunch of you are reading. This is easily my favorite chapter so far in the story; I've been looking forward to writing this ever since I came up with the idea for it. I hope you guys like it.**

* * *

**Chapter 5: The Party**

Once they'd all arrived at Elena's house, the guys got together and walked up to the front door where Rufus rang the bell. Elena opened the door after a few seconds and couldn't help but notice the dejected look on Reno's face. "What, did you think we'd be in the middle of a naked pillow fight or something?"

Seeing his face go bright red all the girls burst into laughter.

"Tough luck," Rufus said, barely holding back his laughter as he walked into the house.

Zack went straight to Aerith and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as he followed Rufus. Cloud thought he saw her try and turn to look at him, but figured it was just his imagination.

Slightly disappointed, Cloud followed his remaining classmates to the living room where they found Rufus, Zack, and Aerith waiting at the bar.

"Common Tifa, let's get the drinks flowing!" Rufus called out when he saw her enter the room.

Cloud walked over to the bar with Tifa, where Zack grabbed a canned beer and Aerith ordered a strawberry daiquiri, which Tifa made in a blink. Once they had their drinks, Zack grabbed Aerith by the arm and they walked off to sit on one of the sofas where they started chatting with everyone else.

Cloud spent the next few minutes in silence watching Tifa as she made drink after drink without receiving any noticeable orders. Each time she finished one she'd call out a name and the person would come over, thanking her for the drink.

"It seems like you've done this a bunch before," he finally said, once Tifa had slowed down and was sipping on something of her own.

"Yup, I guess it started around a year ago. Before one of the parties I read a book on making drinks and thought I'd try my hand at it. Ever since that party I've kept working on perfecting the skill. So, what would you like to drink Cloud?"

"Uhh, I'm not really sure. You seem to know what you're doing though, why don't you throw something together and surprise me?"

"Brave man, Cloud," Rufus commented as Tifa started to make another drink.

Glancing around, Cloud realized that the two of them were the only ones still at the bar. "Why's that?" he asked, looking back at Rufus.

"Last time I asked Tifa to mix something together to surprise me I ended up passed out on the floor as best I can recall," he responded, laughing.

Tifa glared at Rufus and slapped his arm playfully, "That was second party since I'd started making drinks so I was still pretty new to it. You were already plastered by that point, and the drink I mixed for you was a little too strong which pushed you over the edge."

By that time she'd finished making his drink and set it down in front of him. "Try it, let me know what you think."

Looking at his drink with slight skepticism, Cloud took a sip. "Wow, this is actually really good, what is it?"

"It's a Sex on the Beach," Tifa explained, laughing at the name. "It's Vodka with peach schnapps, orange juice, and cranberry juice. I'm glad you like it, it's one of my favorites."

Cloud spent the next thirty minutes chatting with Tifa and Rufus, periodically people would come up and order another drink and then head back to the main group.

He could tell Tifa was having a great time behind the bar making drinks for everyone, and it also seemed that she was especially happy while chatting with Rufus, although it could have just been his imagination.

On the other hand, Cloud wasn't having the greatest time. The drinks Tifa were making for him were great, and it was nice getting to know Tifa and Rufus better, but he could tell they wanted some time alone. Cloud wanted to be spending time with Aerith anyways, but every time he glanced over to look at her, Zack was still holding onto her. So when Tifa happened to point out to him that Zack was heading for the bathroom, Cloud took the opportunity and headed over.

"Hey Aerith, how's it going?" he asked, glancing at the three empty glasses in front of her.

"Cloud! Where have you been, I've wanted to talk with you all night," she responded excitedly, slightly slurring.

"How many drinks have you had?" Cloud was feeling a little tipsy himself, but he knew he wasn't drunk yet. Aerith on the other hand seemed pretty drunk.

"Just those three and this one," she replied, indicating the half full glass she was holding. "I don't feel that drunk though."

"Oh really?" Cloud asked teasingly, "Why don't you stand up and prove it?"

Aerith quickly got to her feet in response, and unfortunately forgot to put her drink down before doing so. As soon as she was fully standing up, Aerith fell forward slightly and thrust her arms out to grab Cloud's shoulders. One hand managed to make it, but the one holding the glass threw the contents directly into Cloud's face. There was no way to dodge out of the way, but Cloud managed to at least close his eyes as strawberry daiquiri covered his entire face.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry Cloud."

Cloud was about to ask for a towel, when he suddenly felt something small, soft, and wet wipe his cheek. The gasps and laughter that immediately followed told Cloud that she'd probably done what he thought she had.

"Uhh, Aerith, did you just lick my face?"

The resulting giggling was all the confirmation Cloud needed.

"Will someone bring me a towel?"

"Noooo," Aerith cried. "Don't waste it, let me lick the rest off!"

After a few minutes, Cloud finally managed to clean his face, while fending Aerith off at the same time. He was about to ask her if she wanted to go for a walk, when he noticed Zack returning. Strangely, Elena seemed to notice as well and she jumped out of Tseng's lap and ran over to him. Just as she reached him she tripped, although to Cloud's eyes it seemed very intentional, and spilled her wine all over Zack.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry Zack! Tseng, would you help Zack find some of my dad's clothes that will fit him so we can get these ones into the wash?"

"Uh, sure," Tseng replied, baffled, as he went over to where they were and walked with Zack out of the room.

As Elena came back over to the group Cloud could have sworn she gave Aerith a hidden thumbs up, but passed it off as his imagination playing tricks on him. "Wanna go outside and walk around for a bit?" he asked Aerith.

"Why should I go with you," she asked, pouting playfully. "You ruined my drink."

"I think some fresh air will be really nice, plus the full moon is beautiful."

Nodding in agreement she grabbed his hand and bolted for the door, forcing Cloud to follow her or else be dragged.

Once they were outside they slowed down to a slow walk, although Aerith refused to let go of his hand. They walked together in silence for several minutes, both either unwilling to break the silence, or uncertain of what to say.

'_She's so incredibly beautiful'_ Cloud thought as he watched her walking next to him, illuminated softy by the full moon.

"You're staring," Aerith teased, breaking the silence.

"Sorry, it's just that you're so pretty," he admitted, causing her to blush. "I've never seen you in a dress before, although I noticed only you and Elena were wearing one."

Aerith laughed softly. "I don't think I've ever seen Tifa wear a dress other then to formal school dances. Yuffie probably would have worn one, except she said she had to escape from her house through her window and she probably didn't want to ruin it. Elena wore hers for Tseng, and I wore mine for…" she looked away without finishing her sentence.

_Me?_ Cloud hoped. "Well you look stunning in pink," he told her, admiring her dress and the way it hugged her curves perfectly.

"Well you look handsome, even if you didn't dress up at all," Aerith replied laughing.

"Hey, no one told me what kind of party it was so I just came dressed normally!" Cloud countered defensively.

They did another lap around the backyard in silence before they started heading back towards the house. "Let's take a dip in the hot tub!" Aerith exclaimed suddenly.

"We don't have swimsuits though," Cloud blurted out, instantly regretting it.

Aerith just laughed and ran towards the hot tub, and Cloud quickly followed her, glad to be able to spend more time alone with her before heading back to everyone else.

When he reached the pool he stopped in shock as he watched Aerith un-button her dress and drop it on the ground before turning to face him clad only in her black bra and panties. "So if I look great in pink, how do I look in black?" Aerith asked, smiling wickedly.

Cloud was speechless; all he could do was stare. Her skin was flawless, and her underwear left hardly anything to the imagination. He felt himself getting excited, and realized he needed to get into the water if he didn't want her to notice.

Blushing at her boldness, Aerith hopped into the tub as Cloud quickly stripped down to his boxers before getting in the water as well. He moved to sit opposite her, but she instantly swam across and sat next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Have you always been this bold and were just hiding it from me, or are you just completely drunk?" Cloud asked in amusement.

"Both," she giggled, "Although the majority is probably from being drunk."

"So you don't make a habit of jumping into hot tubs while virtually naked with guys you don't know very well?"

She sat up so she could hit him playfully before returning to her old position. _'Only if they're kind, smart, very handsome, and you,'_ she thought. "So tell me about yourself then, where'd you used to live? What was your old school like? Why'd you move?"

"We lived in Junon, it was pretty small compared to Midgar, but still nice. It's a lot different from here though, everyone in town knew each other and no one had houses like this one or Rufus'."

Aerith laughed at that. "Just don't judge everyone's houses off theirs, both their fathers are incredibly rich. Midgar is pretty big though, getting to know everyone in the city would be very impressive."

"The school was a _lot_ more boring then ours. It was just normal classes like our mornings; I had to work on my sword-work on my own time at home with no real instruction. I really love how our new school works."

"So what was your old girlfriend like?" Aerith asked reluctantly.

"Girlfriend? I didn't have one."

"What?" she asked in astonishment. "I don't believe you."

"Why not?" he asked, laughing. "I wasn't really interested in a relationship like that back then, or really any friendships actually, plus I wasn't really interested in any of the girls. I think I can actually sort of relate to Sephiroth because of that, if I'd stayed with that mentality I might have become a lot more like him."

"You're nothing like Sephiroth, Cloud," she replied angrily, hugging him tightly with one arm.

"Thanks to you, Vincent, and Tifa I'm not. I'm so glad I transferred here and got to meet you all."

"I am too. So why did you end up moving here?"

"A bunch of stuff happened," Cloud answered evasively. _I'm not ready to talk with her about that yet…_ "The main reason was because my parents were offered better jobs here."

Most likely sensing that he wasn't comfortable with the current topic, Cloud was thankful when she didn't ask for more of an explanation. "What about you?" he asked. "How long have you lived here?"

"I was born here and I've lived my entire life in this city," she replied. "The only times I've ever really been outside have been on school trips. Once I graduate I'd love to spend a year or so traveling around the world before going to college."

"Well we've got that Costa del Sol trip coming up in a few weeks," Cloud pointed out. "That trip should be a lot of fun, I've never been there before and I've heard it's amazing."

"I'm really looking forward to that," Aerith admitted. "An entire week on the beach is like a dream come true," she finished with a loud yawn

"Tired?"

He felt her nod against his shoulder. "A little, yes."

"We don't have any towels," Cloud realized.

"Elena has a bunch of guest rooms upstairs, we might get the rug a bit wet, but once we get up there we can borrow a towel from one of the bathrooms."

As he watched her get out of the water, Cloud saw her stagger slightly. Jumping out of the water he caught her arm, steadying her. "Careful there."

"Thanks, I think I can make it up there."

Ignoring her, Cloud swept her up into his arms, enjoying her shriek of surprise. "Allow me to carry you to your bedchambers, m'lady," he said gallantly, making sure to grab their clothes as well.

Aerith was laughing hysterically as he carried her inside, unable to find enough breath to say anything back to him. For his part, Cloud was trying his hardest not to think about how he was carrying a beautiful, half-naked, woman in his arms whom he was very attracted to. Going up the stairs proved a little tricky, but Cloud managed to make it without harming either of them in the process. When they reached the first bathroom, Cloud set her down and they each grabbed a towel to finish drying off.

"Sir Cloud, would you be so kind as to escort me to my room?" Aerith asked, performing a mock curtsy.

"I would be delighted your highness," he replied, bowing before offering her his arm.

Arm in arm, they walked down the hall and entered one of the empty rooms at the end. "Thanks so much for tonight Cloud, I had a wonderful time thanks to you."

"No need to thank me, I had a great time as well. Do you need any help putting your dress back on?"

"I'm not going to sleep in it silly, that would get it wrinkled. I'll just sleep like this. Are you going to go back down to the party?"

"Na, you've tired me out as well," he replied teasing. "I think I'll go to bed too, sleep well Aerith."

"What, you're not going to stay with me?" she asked, laughing.

Cloud turned a bright red. "No, I'll take the room next door."

He watched her climb into bed and pull the sheets over herself before he flicked the light switch and closed the door. Cloud stood on the other side for a while until he remembered he was still only in his boxers. Retreating into the room next door, Cloud headed to the bed, but stopped before actually getting in.

_I'm worried about leaving her alone, what if someone tries to take advantage of her? _Making up his mind, Cloud got dressed again, left his room, and sat down outside Aerith's door. _I'll stay up all night…_

* * *

Cloud woke up the next morning when he heard Aerith calling out. Quickly standing up, he opened the door and rushed in. "Are you okay?" he asked in a rush, taking in the sight of her sitting up in bed, clutching the sheets to her chest. Her hair was wild and disheveled, and Cloud realized it was the first time he'd seen it not in a braid.

"Cloud," she said in surprise. "Um, would you by chance know why I'm in only my underwear?"

He laughed before replying. "Don't you remember? You ran off to the hot tub, and when I got there you stripped off your dress and hopped in."

She turned bright red and covered her face in her hands when she heard that, the sheets dropping down causing Cloud to turn his head. "That's right, I remember now… But we, we didn't… sleep together did we?" she squeaked out.

"No!" Cloud exclaimed, a little too forcefully. "No, I just carried you up here and went to my own room, although you did suggest I should stay with you," he finished, trying to lighten the mood.

"It's really cold," Aerith commented, shivering as she covered herself with the sheets again. "Why did you open the window?"

Blinking in surprise, Cloud glanced over and saw that the window was indeed wide open. _What the… I didn't do that…_ Concerned, he walked over and looked outside. _We're up on the second floor and there's no way anyone got past me last night. How is this possible?_ Glancing back at Aerith she seemed fine, so whoever had broken in clearly hadn't done anything, noticeable at least.

"Cloud, what's wrong?" she asked, clearly worried.

"Nothing," he lied. "I just thought it was a bit hot last night so I opened the window a crack, I guess the wind just opened it the rest of the way."

Aerith nodded in response, seeming to accept the explanation. "I actually don't feel so great, would you be willing to drive me home? I'll get a ride back here with my parents sometime tomorrow to pick up my car."

"Sure, that's not a problem. Won't your dress get ruined if you're riding on the back of my bike though?"

"I'll borrow some of Elena's clothes, go wait in the hall and I'll be right out."

Amused by her re-found modesty, Cloud stepped back into the hallway and closed the door. _ Who the hell could have been in there last night? Zack? But how would he have gotten in? A ladder?_ The whole idea was ridiculous, but Cloud couldn't come up with anything else. _Maybe the window actually was slightly open already and the wind really did do it…_ Except Cloud knew he didn't believe that. _Someone else other then me was in that room last night, and I intend to find out who it was, and what they did._

The door opening startled him and broke through his thoughts, causing him to jump backwards to avoid being hit. "I'm not so sure how safe I feel with you driving me home," Aerith said laughing as she stepped through the doorway. "Are you sure you're okay Cloud?"

"Yah sorry, I was just lost in thought. You ready to go?"

"Yup, lets say goodbye to everyone who's awake and we can head out."

He saw that she'd brushed out and re-braided her hair and was wearing a simple white t-shirt along with a pair of tight fitting jeans. The sight was just as startling as seeing her with her hair down. He'd never seen her wearing anything other then her usual clothes except her dress, which was currently folded under her arm.

Together they walked down the hall and started down the stairs. Right as they reached the bottom, some lucky fighter's instinct caused Cloud to jerk to the left while shoving Aerith forcefully behind him. The sword tip bit into his upper right arm, and he realized that if he hadn't heard the sound of the blade whistling through the air he might have been seriously injured. Zack was wielding the sword.

"I told you not to touch her and what do you do? You _fuck_ her. I'm going to _kill_ you Cloud!" Zack yelled, the smell of alcohol quite clear on his breath.

"Zack NO," Aerith screamed, but he completely ignored her and took another step toward them.

Realizing that he was placing Aerith in danger as well simply by being near her, Cloud quickly moved away, glad when Zack turned to face him. "Zack, we didn't sleep together," he tried explaining while backing up, but Zack clearly didn't care what he had to say.

Cloud had left his sword with Fenrir, he'd figured it wouldn't be necessary at the party, so unless he could get Zack to calm down somehow, he would be forced to fight unarmed. A lot of blood was also flowing down his arm from Zack's initial cut.

To Cloud's horror, Aerith ran in front of Zack and slapped him in the face as hard as she could. "Cut it out Zack, Cloud didn't do anything to me!"

Shoving her aside, Zack continued toward Cloud, raising his sword again as he advanced. "I can't believe you'd take advantage of her while she was drunk," he snarled.

"At least I'm not some crazy stalker who used a ladder to climb through her window in the middle of the night," Cloud snapped without thinking.

That got Zack to pause, a look of complete confusion on his face. "What?" Aerith shrieked, looking at Cloud in shock. "I thought you said the wind…"

"I don't know what you're talking about, I was down here drinking all night. I haven't been upstairs since I got here."

"Cloud, what are you talking about? Please tell me you're joking," Aerith begged.

"I don't know!" Cloud exclaimed angrily as he collapsed on a nearby sofa. "When I left your room last night I'm sure the window was closed. Granted I didn't check or anything, but I know I certainly didn't open it. The next morning when you called out it was wide open when I entered the room."

"Why did you lie to me about something like that?" she asked angrily, clearly hurt. "Were you planning on ever letting me know that some creep was in my room while I was asleep?"

"I… I'm sorry," he apologized, unable to look at her. "I didn't want to scare you, but you're right, I shouldn't have lied to you about it either."

"Zack," she continued, rounding on him. "Enough of this, you're making me sick. We aren't going out and we never were. You're a great friend, but lately you've just been a complete ass. You even attacked Cloud when he'd done nothing wrong. Even if we _had_ slept together that's my decision to make, not yours to make for me. So please, stop acting like this and let's go back to the way it used to be, I don't want to lose you as a friend, but that's all you're going to be."

Too ashamed to reply, Zack slumped to the floor.

"Is your arm okay Cloud?" Aerith asked.

"Yah, it's not that serious, it's just bleeding like crazy."

"Lets go then, right now I just want to get home. This morning has been a nightmare."

Cloud followed her outside and hopped on Fenrir. "Sit behind me and hold on tight, we don't want you falling off."

She did as instructed, and Cloud drove into the street once he was sure she was holding on tight enough. "I'm really sorry about earlier," he said softly after a while, breaking the silence.

"I know you are," Aerith replied, resting her head on his back and tightening her grip for a second in the form of a hug. "I understand what you were trying to do and that you didn't mean any harm, I just have a splitting headache and Zack wasn't helping. I'll need to apologize to him as well, although I meant every word I said."

The rest of the trip to Aerith's house passed in silence. When they got there, she jumped off Fenrir and leaned forward to place a quick kiss on Cloud's cheek. "I'll see you on Monday!" she called out as she ran to the front door.

Cloud sat there in shock as he watched her go inside before smiling and heading home.

* * *

**So much fun stuff happened, I had a total blast writing this chapter. I'm also quite pleased to say that over the week it took to write it I was swarmed by plot bunnies and have a pretty solid idea of where I want this story to go and how it's going to get there. I can't make any promises about future updates, however. School started this Monday and it's going to be taking up a lot of my time. I want to keep writing though, so I'll be trying my hardest to continue updating this, expect the next chapter within 2 weeks or so. As always I'd really love to hear from you about what you think of the story so please leave a review.**

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**Next Chapter:**** Class Trip! (I think. This may change, as I'm considering doing a mini-intermission like chapter that introduces a few minor characters and helps cover the time that passes between this chapter and the class trip.)**


	6. New Faces

**Okay, so most of you are probably going to be a little disappointed by this chapter. It isn't actually continuing the story line from where it left off in the last chapter, as in it's not going to be jumping straight to The Beach chapter. I spent a lot of time thinking about if I really wanted to include this chapter or not, but in the end I decided to for a few reasons. Mainly I wasn't very comfortable just skipping three weeks ahead to when the class trip is, and the other main reason is that I felt this would be as good a time as any to introduce a few new characters that will be playing roles later in the story.**

**A huge thanks to Ancielle for her help in beta-ing this chapter! **

* * *

**Intermission: New Faces**

_The party sure was crazy,_ Cloud thought as he parked Fenrir and walked up the front steps of the school. _Hopefully things won't be too awkward with Aerith and Zack…_ It was the Monday after the party, and Cloud hadn't seen either of them since.

As he walked through the front doors of the school, Cloud heard a strange noise coming from Barret's office. Against his better instincts, Cloud decided to investigate so he walked over and opened the door before peaking inside. He was surprised to see Barret standing in the middle of the room, holding a young, laughing girl in the air and spinning her around over his head. Even more surprising, Barret was smiling and laughing, which was the sound Cloud hadn't been able to place before.

The moment Barret noticed Cloud in the doorway, however, he set the girl down and directed his usual glower at him. Before he started speaking, he covered the girl's ears with his thumb and middle finger, able to do it with his one hand since it was so large compared to her head.

"The next time you fucking come into my office without knocking, Cloud, I swear I will kick your sorry ass so hard you won't know what the hell hit you," he yelled, although he made sure it wasn't so loud that the girl would still be able to hear it.

"I'm sorry sir, I was just…" Cloud stammered, but Barret cut him off before he could finish.

"I don't care what kind of lame ass excuse you might have, just make sure it doesn't happen again," he growled. "Oh, and uh, you better not talk about anything you saw or else…"

"I understand. Sorry, I promise it won't happen again!" Cloud said in a rush as he jumped backwards and slammed the door shut. "Wow…"

"So, I see you've met Marlene."

Cloud turned around and saw Tifa smiling at him. "Marlene? Who's that?"

"The little girl with Barret, she's his daughter."

"What?" Cloud exclaimed in shock. "Barret's married?"

"That's right, although his wife actually passed away two years ago. Barret doesn't like people to think he has a soft side though, so he tries to hide it. Everyone knows about Marlene, however, so you can ignore whatever threat I'm sure he made."

"That's a relief."

"Hey you two, what's going on?" Aerith asked, having just walked in through the front doors.

"Not much," Tifa replied. "Cloud just walked in on Barret playing with Marlene, it was pretty amusing."

"Oh you've met her now! Isn't she so adorable? I've babysat her in the past a few times when Myrna was still alive," Aerith explained.

Before Cloud could reply, the bell rang indicating that classes were starting in five minutes. The three of them hurried for the classroom so they could get seats next to each other.

* * *

_One week later_

* * *

Hand in hand, Cloud and Aerith walked into the weapons training room. Cloud felt that things between him and Aerith were going pretty well now. They weren't officially dating yet, but it was assumed among all their friends. Cloud wasn't sure what exactly he was waiting for before he asked her out, but lately he'd been considering doing it during the upcoming class trip.

Zack seemed to have accepted the fact as well it seemed. Lately he'd been hanging out more and more with the two of them, and Cloud was already considering him a good friend. Once Zack had stopped being so possessive over Aerith, he and Cloud had found out that they actually shared a pretty similar list of interests.

As Cloud and Aerith walked over to a corner of the room to practice in, Cloud noticed Cid talking to a woman he'd never seen before. Since Aerith made no mention of it he just ignored it and started to train with her.

When they took a small break after a few minutes, however, he couldn't contain his curiosity any longer. "Who's that woman talking with Cid?"

"Hmm? Oh that's right, I forgot you haven't met her yet. That's Shura, she's Cid's wife."

"What? Cid's married too?" Cloud exclaimed, a little too loudly.

Shura started to laugh, but Cid turned to face them and frowned at Cloud. "Something wrong with that?" he asked

"No, not at all!" Cloud said quickly. "You just didn't seem like…"

"The type of person anyone would ever marry? Well, Shura's a little insane, what can I say?"

"I am not!" Shura exclaimed, still laughing. "Once you get over the occasional swearing and smoking Cid's actually a wonderful person," she said to Cloud.

"What? I am not!" Cid declared indignantly. "I'm a mean bastard here to teach kids the basics about fighting so they don't go and get themselves killed. I hate 'em all."

Everyone in the room laughed at that.

"I don't mean to be rude," Aerith began, "but why are you here today Shura? It's pretty rare for you to actually come to the school."

"I know, I needed to talk to Cid about some of the disturbances in the poorer districts of the city."

"What's going on?" Cloud asked.

"Crime is just a lot higher then it usually is for some reason. There have been a lot of burglaries lately and even one fire, although, thankfully, no one has been hurt so far."

"I still don't see what the fuck I'm supposed to do about it…" Cid muttered.

"They just want your help on investigating the matter whenever you have time to spare," Shura said. "You're highly respected by everyone there and they're really interested in your take on what's going on."

"Shura works at the police station," Aerith whispered to Cloud in explanation.

"Right, right, I'll see what I can do," Cid sighed.

"Thanks!" Shura said happily, giving Cid a hug before heading for the door. "I've got to get back to work now, good luck with your training, everyone!"

"Take care!" Aerith called out before she and Cloud went back to training.

* * *

_One week later_

* * *

Together, Cloud and Aerith walked into their final Materia class of the week, both excited for it to end since the class trip was starting next week. Several steps into the room, Cloud noticed a seemingly new addition.

"Look, Bugenhagen's got a new rug," he commented, pointing at the red object on the floor.

"I am not a rug," the not-a-rug replied as it stood up on four legs.

Cloud protectively thrust out his arm to prevent the creature from being able to reach Aerith without getting past him first. He was shocked to notice that it also had a tail, which seemed to be on fire. To his surprise, Aerith burst into laughter behind him and walked past his arm so she could pet the creature's head.

"This is Red, Cloud. He's Bugenhagen's companion."

"Although I prefer to be called Nanaki, Red is just a nickname the kids came up with," Nanaki responded, purring softly in response to Aerith's petting.

"First Barret brings Marlene to the school, then Shura shows up asking Cid for help, and now you. Something big is going on, isn't it Red?" Aerith asked in concern.

"We aren't certain," Nanaki responded evasivly. "I can't tell you very much about it, but I suppose it's pointless to try and keep you completely in the dark since you've already noticed as much as you have."

"Okay, so what exactly is going on?" Cloud asked.

"As you may have noticed, or heard about, things out in the city have become much more turbulent then usual in a surprisingly short amount of time. We don't know if it's simply a series of events chained together, or if some group or organization is directing it all. The one thing we do know is it's bad. The Shinra Company has just recently started investigating, but…"

"Enough Nanaki!" Bugenhagen said sharply as he entered the room. "Everyone tells me how amazing it must be to have a cat that can talk as a companion, but when his tongue is so loose, I often view it more as a curse."

"I'm sorry," Nanaki apologized. "I just felt they should know at least the basics of what's going on."

"I know my friend, but for now they need to focus on studying and learning. Outside information such as this will only serve to distract them, but you are right. Sometime in the future, if this continues to escalate, we may need to request their help as well. For now, however, everyone please take your seats. Today, we begin work on advanced Materia such as Fira."

"Think we should start investigating?" Cloud whispered to Aerith as he sat down next to her.

"Absolutely not," she replied firmly. "Bugenhagen is right, this is something for them to handle, we need to focus on learning as much as we can for now."

Cloud sighed in disappointment and started listening as Bugenhagen began explaining about how higher level Materia was more difficult to control.

When the class ended, everyone hurried to the auditorium where Barret was waiting for them.

"As I'm sure all of you already know the class trip begins on Monday."

All the students let out a cheer.

"And as I sure you already also know where we're going thanks to a certain un-named someone," Barret growled as he looked over at Cid "make sure to pack for the beach."

"I'm so excited!" Aerith exclaimed. "An entire week relaxing on the beach, it's like a dream come true."

"It's going to be so awesome," Tifa agreed.

"There won't be any school work or anything like that," Barret continued. "This is meant to be a small break from your studies to reward you for all the hard effort so far. I'll see you early Monday morning in front of the school," he finished.

"Well, guys, I guess I'll see you Monday morning," Cloud said as they started to leave the school. "I have a bunch of stuff I need to do around the house, not including packing, before we leave, so I won't be able to hang out this weekend," he explained.

"Alright, take care Cloud," Aerith said, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. "I'll see you on Monday!"

"See you then," Tifa and Vincent both called out as they headed to their cars as well.

Cloud started up Fenrir and headed home, eager for the weekend to be over so he could spend time with all his new friends on the beach.

* * *

**It's very short, at least compared to the other chapters, but I think from this point on most of the chapters will be. (Although they should be longer then this one at least.) It's either shorter chapters with faster updates or longer chapters with slower updates, so if people really care, let me know. I did manage to tie in the beginning of the main plot line into this chapter though, so in the end, this is actually more of a real chapter although I'm going to leave it titled as an intermission. Hopefully it wasn't too boring. I'd also like to thank everyone who's left a review, it really means a lot to me.**

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**Next Chapter:**** The Beach**


	7. The Beach

**I'm sorry this chapter took so long; College is taking up a vast amount of my time right now. The good news is that Fall Break is right around the corner, so I'm hoping to not only get the next chapter out somewhat soon, but it should also be pretty long. As always a huge thanks to the readers who take the time to leave a review, I really appreciate it.**

**Many thanks to the -**_**wonderful**_**- Ancielle for helping to beta this chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter 6: The Beach**

After a short, but boring ride from the port, Cloud and his classmates finally arrived at the mini beach resort they'd be staying at for the coming week. Earlier that morning, they had all arrived bright and early at the school, and piled into one of the school's buses. From there, they had traveled west to Midgar's harbor, where they boarded a ferry and sailed to the other continent where Costa del Sol was located. Cloud was actually surprised with how fast the trip had been. Since they'd left so early in the morning, they had managed to arrive shortly after noon, meaning that it looked like they would get a chance to visit the beach on their first day. To the student's dismay, however, Cid stopped them as soon as they were off the bus.

"I know you're all excited to get down to the beach, but before that we need to show you guys where you're staying and list a few of our rules," he explained, indicating for them to follow him. "You'll be staying here in these condos, one for the boys, and one for the girls," he told them, pointing at the buildings they were walking towards. "Curfew is at midnight, if you're found outside your room after that point the punishment will be severe. You'll also be cooking your own dinners as well, tonight the girls will cook and then you'll rotate each night after that. There's a communal hall between the two condos, where you can eat your meals and hang out. That should be all for now, go have some fun and enjoy the beach!"

At that, all the students broke off and rushed to their respective dorms, excited to change into their swimsuits and get to the beach. As Cloud ran through the halls, looking for an empty room, he noticed that the place was incredibly nice. Once he found a room that none of the other guys had claimed, he quickly changed into his swimsuit, which was black with a howling, silver, wolf on each leg.

When he was finished changing, he joined Vincent and the male Turks in the common room to wait for the girls. Noticing a person missing, he couldn't help but ask: "Where's Sephiroth?"

"I saw him go into his room and heard him lock the door, guess he isn't interested in the beach," Rufus replied.

A few minutes later, the girls entered the room, each carrying a towel and wearing a bikini: Aerith in pink, Tifa in black, Yuffie in yellow, and Elena in red.

"Towels?" Reno asked. "You don't need towels, the sun will dry you off!"

"They're for sunbathing, you idiot," Elena replied, rolling her eyes.

"What?" Reno exclaimed in shock. "We're not going to the beach to do boring stuff like sunbathe, we have to play in the water and make sand castles and stuff!"

The girls just laughed at that before walking out the door followed shortly after by the guys. True to their word, once they reached the beach, the girls laid out their towels next to each other and began sunbathing, ignoring the guys' pleas.

"Well if they want to be boring sticks in the mud like that, then there's nothing we can do," commended Zack. "Let's just have fun without them. Who's up for some body surfing?"

For the next half hour, the guys messed around in the water, seeing who could body surf the largest wave and the like. Everyone was clearly disappointed, though, by the fact that the girls weren't participating as well. No one made a comment when Reno suddenly ran back to the condos, but when they saw him running back carrying several buckets they all got out of the water and gathered around him.

"I've been thinking about it long and hard since we got down here, and it's just not fair that the girls are doing this, right?" Reno whispered.

"I don't necessarily agree," Rufus said cautiously, "but what exactly are you planning to do about it?"

Reno snuck a furtive glance towards the girls before responding. "Well, we've left them alone for a good forty minutes now, I'm sure they're really warm and comfortable by this point. I went and grabbed all these buckets so, well, I'm sure you can figure out the rest," he finished, grinning wickedly.

"No," Zack stated firmly, shaking his head in horror. "No way in hell. Do you know what they'd do to us! We'd be lucky if we got off with only a few missing appendages."

"Oh, come on, it's only a little fun and games," Cloud replied, laughing. "I like the plan, it sounds awesome. Who else is in?"

After a bit of persuading Cloud and Reno finally managed to get everyone to agree to participate, and each of them grabbed a bucket. Once they had filled them full of cold seawater, they stealthily crept up to where the girls were laying down, and strategically positioned themselves.

"One. Two. Th…" Cloud began counting down.

"Why are you counting?" Aerith asked in confusion, blinking sleepily as she started to sit up.

"NOW!" screamed Reno.

Together all the boys threw their water across the girls. The reaction was instantaneous. The girls were on their feet shrieking before the boys could even take a single step. Realizing that their plan was about to backfire, the boys scattered and ran away as fast as they possibly could.

"I am going to _kill_ you, Rufus," Tifa screamed as she chased after him.

Elena targeted Tseng and began running after him, Yuffie decided to go after Reno, and Aerith glanced between Zack and Cloud before deciding to chase the latter of the two.

"You are _so_ going to pay for that, mister!" she yelled as she ran after him.

"Wait! We can talk this over!" Cloud called back desperately.

Unfortunately, turning his head to yell back resulted in him stumbling on the sand allowing Aerith to get close enough to tackle him. They tumbled to the ground together and Aerith began punching him all over.

"Okay, okay! I'm sorry!" Cloud laughed, quickly realizing from the lack of force in any of the blows that Aerith wasn't really that angry with him.

"Don't think you've gotten off easy," Aerith told him as they got up. "I promise you we'll get revenge."

In the end, everyone ended up playing together in the water for another hour until they decided they were hungry and started to head back.

"See, in the end wasn't it a good thing we attacked you?" Reno asked. "That was so much fun once you guys stopped being so lazy."

"We're here for a week!" Tifa exclaimed. "It's not like we were going to sunbathe everyday!"

"Or ever again after that," muttered Elena.

"So what's for dinner?" Rufus asked, deciding it was best to change the subject.

"Oh, that's right, I'd forgotten we had to cook tonight," Aerith replied. "I guess we'll figure it out after we've changed; it'll be a secret that way."

* * *

After the guys changed, they gathered together in the communal hall between the dorms and chatted while watching television as they waited for the girls to finish cooking.

"You know… in retrospect, with them cooking dinner tonight, that attack was a _really_ bad idea," Cloud commented.

"You don't think they'd mess with the food do you?" Reno asked in horror.

"I told you we'd regret it," Zack said, shaking his head.

"What's with Sephiroth?" Cloud asked. "Is he _still_ in his room?"

"Who cares?" Vincent replied. "The less we see of him this trip, the better."

"Dinner's ready!" Yuffie called out, interrupting their conversation.

"Please let the food be safe, please the food be safe," Reno prayed under his breath as they walked to the kitchen.

Once they arrived they found the rest of the girls sitting at the table waiting for them. Two large bowls were placed at the ends of the table and a single bowl in the middle contained salad.

"Oh wow! It's chili!" Reno cried in excitement as he sat down.

"Why are there two serving bowls?" Cloud asked in suspicion.

"Because it's easier that way, silly" Aerith replied. "These are already heavy enough, passing one bowl back and forth would be a nightmare."

After each side served themselves from their respective bowl the girls began eating, but all the boys were still looking at their chili suspiciously.

"What's wrong?" Tifa asked Vincent who was sitting across from her.

"Uh nothing," he replied, taking a large spoonful of chili and eating it.

Collectively the rest of the boys drew a deep breath as they watched Vincent chew.

"Wow, this is really good!" he exclaimed, before eagerly taking another spoonful and devouring it.

Upon hearing that, the rest of the boys decided it was safe and dug in. Just as he put the chili in his mouth, however, Cloud noticed the girls giving each other looks of surprise. He immediately realized why.

"You call this _good_?" Zack exclaimed, tears running down his face.

"I've never eaten anything this hot in my life!" cried Reno, grabbing his glass of water and chugging it down.

"Really?" asked Vincent. "It tastes just fine to me, it's the perfect degree of spiciness in my mind."

"Well, other then the heat, you do have to admit that it is really good chili," Cloud pointed out.

"Any chance we could try some of yours?" Rufus asked pleadingly.

"No way," Tifa replied smirking. "This is your payback for earlier, eat it or starve," she finished evilly as she gave Aerith a high five.

The rest of the meal finished in relative silence as the girls enjoyed their chili, and the guys, except Vincent, suffered through theirs. Once they were finished, everyone decided to watch a movie before going to bed.

"I'm sorry we had to do that to you guys," Aerith whispered to Cloud as she curled up against him on the sofa. "We couldn't just let you get away with what you did, though."

"It's alright," Cloud assured her. "I meant what I said, other than the heat that really was amazing chili."

After a few minutes Aerith pulled away from him. "It's a little chilly, I'm going to run to my room and grab a sweatshirt fast," she said.

"Want me to go grab mine for you instead?" Cloud asked.

"No thanks," she replied, smiling as she stood up.

"Do you want some company?" Tifa asked.

"Heh, it's not far at all, I'll be fine Tifa," she laughed.

After several minutes had passed, however, Aerith hadn't returned, Tifa got up without saying anything and headed for the girls rooms. She returned only a minute later, bursting through the door and breathing hard.

"Aerith is gone!"

* * *

**I know it's an incredibly short chapter, especially for how much time has passed since the last update, but I wanted to end on a cliffhanger. Hopefully this chapter isn't too disappointing. I can, on the other hand, promise you that the next chapter is going to be much longer. It should be posted in around two weeks, and a lot of really important stuff is going to be happening.**

* * *

**Next Chapter:**** Rescue!**


	8. Upside Down

**4 years isn't too long to leave a story on a cliffhanger right? :P I imagine by this point most of the original readers have long forgotten about this story, but when I checked the stats pages recently, I was surprised at how many people still read it. It's been nagging me for a while now that I pretty much just abandoned this story, especially since it's one of my favorites. Thankfully, I still have all my notes and I remember exactly where I want to go with it. I can't promise lots of fast updates, but I do have a large amount of free time on my hands for a while and I really do hope that in the next few months I'll have this story finished. As an extra treat, this is the second longest chapter so far in the story. I hope it was worth the wait and that the opening sucks you right back in.**

**Once again, thanks to my fantastic beta, Ancielle, for helping with this chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter 7: Upside Down**

Cloud looked up at Aerith, barely able to see her through the tears in his eyes. "I don't understand, what did I do?" he asked. The cold, cruel look in her eyes was breaking his heart.

"Die," she hissed as she released the Fira spell directly at him.

* * *

_Two weeks earlier_

* * *

Elena instantly paused the movie and everyone gathered around Tifa to find out what was going on.

Cloud looked at her in confusion, unwilling to believe what he'd just heard. "What do you mean she's 'gone'? Are you sure she isn't just in the bathroom or something?" Despite his words, Cloud could read it on Tifa's face that something was seriously wrong.

"Of course I checked the bathroom, she isn't there!" Tifa explained, the note of concern clear in her voice. "I went to our room to see what was taking her so long; when I got there I found her sweatshirt on the floor and the window wide open."

Cloud struggled to keep his rising panic under control, his brain furiously trying to figure out what could have possibly happened.

Rufus wrapped his arm around Tifa's shoulders as she collapsed onto the sofa sobbing, unable to take it any longer. "It's going to be okay," he tried to reassure her. "We're going to find out exactly what happened to her."

As Elena and Yuffie replaced him in comforting Tifa, Rufus quickly took control of the situation. "Reno, Rude, go and notify the teachers immediately. Vincent, Zack, and Tseng, stay here and keep an eye on the girls. Cloud and I are going to check out Aerith's room. Weapons ready everyone, we don't know what's going on yet."

After quickly grabbing their weapons from their rooms, Cloud and Rufus hurried to Tifa and Aerith's room. Just as Tifa had described it, Aerith's sweatshirt was lying on the floor and a cold breeze was blowing in through the open window.

"She was cold so she came for her sweatshirt, decided she didn't need it, and went for an evening stroll?" suggested Rufus skeptically.

"In the rain? Without her staff?" Cloud pointed out, as a light drizzle had just started falling and the weapon in question was leaning against the wall. "Obviously something weird is going on here. The window opens from the inside and clearly hasn't been forced. On top of that, there's no sign of a struggle so she apparently opened it."

"She opened it for someone she recognized and they took her?" Rufus questioned. "Except everyone was watching the movie and there's no way a teacher would do that."

"Everyone except Sephiroth," Cloud growled, his hand tightening on his sword.

"Wait a minute, now, Cloud, "Rufus cautioned, "We don't know what happened and I highly doubt Aerith would just go along with Sephiroth…" But Cloud wasn't listening as he headed out the door, his mind already made up as to what had happened.

* * *

Cloud didn't even think of knocking and simply took out the door with a single swing. "Where the hell is she, you bastard?" he demanded, only realizing now that Sephiroth had been sleeping when he burst through the door.

"What the…" Sephiroth muttered sleepily as he took in the situation. As soon as he registered the sight of Cloud brandishing his sword at him, Sephiroth leapt out of bed, swiftly drawing his own sword from its sheath. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked.

"Stop playing games," Cloud demanded. "What did you do to her, Sephiroth?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sephiroth angrily retorted. "All I know is that you've broken into my room in the middle of the night, while I was attempting to get some sleep, in the hopes of blaming me for something that's not my fault."

"Aerith's missing you bastard, and I know you're the one behind it," Cloud shouted, taking a step forward and readying his sword.

"What?" Sephiroth responded, a flicker of genuine surprise flashing across his face. "What do you mean she's missing?"

"Stop pretending you don't know what I'm talking about and…"

"ENOUGH," Cid yelled, furiously glaring at the two of them from the ruined doorway. "Go to your room, Cloud, and stay there until I come and get you."

"But…"

"No buts! You've clearly shown that your emotions are in full control and that you're not thinking. Sephiroth isn't responsible for this, which you'd know if you'd stayed with Rufus instead of storming off and acting like a child. We found her footprints, and only hers, leading off into the forest, so whatever's going on, she's doing it on her own."

Cowed, Cloud lowered his sword realizing that Cid was completely right. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I'll pay for the door."

"You're damn right you will," Cid muttered, clearly not as angry anymore now that Cloud had somewhat calmed down. "We're going to form a search party and go out looking for her, but given the weather and the fact that it's the middle of the night, I doubt we'll find her. We'll try again in the morning if she isn't back by then, and you'll be more than welcome to join us. For now, we just have to hope she knows what she's doing since there have been no signs of foul play."

Emotionally drained, Cloud returned to his room where, to his surprise, he found Red, waiting for him. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "I thought you'd be helping with the search. I wish I could."

"It's _wet_ out there," Red stated in disgust. "And as much as I'd like to help look for Aerith, someone has to watch over you to make sure you don't do anything else stupid."

Realizing that there was nothing else he could do, Cloud got ready for bed and climbed under the sheets. Knowing that Aerith was still somewhere out there, alone and possibly in danger, Cloud was positive he'd be unable to sleep. His instincts told him that Sephiroth was clearly involved, somehow, but he just couldn't figure out how it was possible. After all, Sephiroth was either a remarkable actor, or even he had been surprised to hear that Aerith had gone missing.

"Red, what do you know about Sephiroth?"

"Not much more than you," the cat responded. "He's obviously a loner. His parents are Hojo and Jenova; they're very well known Materia researchers. Bugenhagen worked with them on a project a few years ago, but stopped for some reason, you'd have to ask him why."

As Cloud pondered over this new information, sleep unexpectedly snuck up and engulfed him.

* * *

Cloud abruptly woke up as two paws landed on his chest.

"You were sleeping so deeply you didn't hear Cid yelling from the other side of the door and I figured you wouldn't want the search party to leave without you," Red explained as he dropped back onto the floor.

"Thanks Red," Cloud said as he jumped out of bed and scrambled to get dressed. "So, she's still missing?"

Red nodded in confirmation. "All the search party managed to accomplish last night was getting wet and muddy. By the time they set out, the rain had completely destroyed any trace of her tracks so all we know is that she's somewhere in the forest."

Once dressed, Cloud strapped his sword to his back and hurried outside to join everyone.

"Hey sleepy head, glad you could join us," Tifa teased. "I heard that the explosion last night was you and not a Comet Materia."

Cloud flushed slightly in embarrassment at the reminder of how out of control he'd been the previous night. He could tell that despite Tifa's attempt to come off as light hearted, she was deathly afraid for her best friend. "I swear to you I'll find her, Tifa."

Tifa smiled weakly, but didn't respond. Sensing it would be best to leave her alone for now, Cloud walked over to Vincent. "What's _he_ doing here?" Cloud asked, nodding in the direction of Sephiroth.

"Not sure," Vincent responded. "He was here before any of us. Maybe he thinks that if he finds her she'll fall into his arms and cover him in kisses."

"Not likely," Cloud muttered angrily. Vincent nodded in agreement as Cid and Reeve joined the students.

"As all of you already know, Aerith Gainsborough mysteriously went missing last night," Cid announced. "We're going to divide into two parties and scour the forest for any signs of her. Keep in mind that while the beach is a safe vacation area, the forest is still wild and there _will_ be monsters waiting for us in there. The deeper we get, the more dangerous it becomes. On top of that, we only have so much time to search - the last thing we want is to be stuck in the forest at night. We don't want to lose another student."

"She's not dead!" Tifa hissed angrily, clenching her fists.

Cid quickly separated the students into two groups: Sephiroth, Zack, Tseng, Elena, Reno, and Rude were with Reeve, and Cloud, Tifa, Vincent, Rufus, Yuffie and Red were with Cid.

As his group reached the tree line, Cid explained the plan. "We're going to spread out to cover as much ground as possible. Make sure to keep the people on your left and right in sight at all times, Red and I will each take an end. If you run into a monster and have any doubts whatsoever make sure to call for help. Any questions?"

When no one raised their hand, the group entered the forest and began the search. What had started as a hopeful expedition grew more and more moody as the hours passed with no sign of Aerith. By mid-day, they had slowed to a crawl due to the increased rate of monster attacks, and Cloud had replaced Red on one of the ends since he was the only student still able to take monsters on alone. After the latest battle, in which it had taken everyone to survive, Cid called a meeting.

"As much as I know no one wants to turn around, we simply can't continue on. It's getting far too dangerous, and if the group of us is struggling this much, there's no way Aerith could have made it this far on her own. Let's shift over and take a different way back to continue looking for her."

Despite how upset everyone was about turning around, no one could disagree with what Cid had said. No one but Cloud, that is. For some reason he couldn't explain, he felt sure that Aerith was just a bit deeper in the forest. As they turned around, Cloud glanced to his right and saw Yuffie stumbling along, struggling just to keep moving. As the only Junior in the group and the least experienced in combat, she'd been hit the hardest by the constant fighting. Cloud didn't want to endanger Yuffie by making her the end of the search line, but he knew he had to go deeper into the forest, even if it meant going alone. There was no way he was going to leave Aerith to spend another night lost and alone in the forest.

Knowing that they'd move Yuffie off the end as soon as they discovered him missing, and that they'd already wiped out the majority of the monsters on the way back to the beach, Cloud broke off from the group after he saw Yuffie confirm his position.

After another hour of continuing on deeper into the forest without any trace of Aerith, Cloud began to question if he'd made the right decision. It was already starting to get dark and at this rate he'd barely make it back to the beach before the sun would set. Just as he was about to give up and turn around, he caught a glimpse of pink in the corner of his vision. Rushing over, he found a torn tatter of what could only be a piece of Aerith's shirt.

Elated, Cloud looked around for more traces of where she could have gone. After finding another two pieces of torn clothing, he arrived at a clearing and found Aerith lying on her back in the middle of it. She was covered in mud, her clothes were a shredded mess and she didn't appear to be breathing.

Cloud ran over and quickly checked her pulse. She was still alive to his relief, but barely. He reached into his pack and pulled out a Cure Materia, hoping that it would be enough, and cursing his weak magic abilities. Concentrating furiously, he managed to cast the Cure spell on his first attempt. Cradling her head in his lap, Cloud prayed to the Ancients that she was okay. After a few moments, her eyelids flickered, and then opened, and he could see her beautiful green eyes looking up at him.

"Cloud," she said happily, "what are you doing in my room? Did Tifa let you in?"

Before he could respond, Aerith finished coming to and realized she wasn't in her bedroom.

"What are we doing in the forest, Cloud?" she asked, her voice full of panic.

"You don't remember what happened?" Cloud responded, deeply concerned.

Aerith shook her head. "The last thing I remember is going to my room and grabbing my sweatshirt… What's going on Cloud?"

"I don't know," Cloud said in frustration. "But I promise you we'll figure it out. We need to get back now, it's getting late and we have a long way to go. Can you walk?"

"I think so," Aerith replied, slowly getting to her feet while taking in the state of her clothes. As she put her full weight on her right foot, she cried out in pain and would have collapsed if Cloud hadn't caught her. "I think I sprained my ankle."

"I'll carry you back, it's not a problem," Cloud said, lifting her in his arms.

"Thanks for saving me, Cloud," Aerith said softly. "I wish you didn't have to see me this ugly."

"I'm just glad you're safe," Cloud responded in relief as he began walking back towards the beach. "I was terrified I'd lost you."

"You'll never… lose me," Aerith whispered, yawning loudly. "I…" But whatever she was going to say next was lost as exhaustion claimed her.

Digging deep into his dwindling reserves of strength, Cloud pressed on, praying that he had enough to get them both back safe.

* * *

'_Run!' _

_The voice flashed into her mind out of nowhere and was gone just as fast._

_She held her sweatshirt in her arms, wondering what had just happened._

A bedroom.

_She recognized that voice. After all, she heard that voice every day. It was her own voice._

"_Hello?" she asked tentatively, aware that generally talking with oneself inside your own head was a very bad sign._

_There was no response._

_Or was there? It was very faint, but she heard something._

The bedroom in Elena's house.

"_Youuuuu…"_

_It was very faint. More alarmingly, **that** was **not** her voice._

"_What's going on?" she asked in a panic._

"_**HE** is coming!"_

A closed window.

"_Who? What?" She was so confused. What was going on?_

"_RUN!"_

_She dropped her sweatshirt on the floor, opened her window, and ran, ignoring her bare feet._

An open window.

"_Youuuu aaareeee…"_

_It was still faint but getting louder and clearer._

"_I am what?" she asked. Part of her didn't want to know._

_She was at the forest now. She glanced behind her._

A shrouded figure.

_There was no one there. She started to slow down._

"_What am I doing? Everyone is going to be so worried."_

"_**RUN!**"_

_The moon, shining in each raindrop, lit her path through the trees._

A red glow.

_She had been running forever. Her clothes were torn. Muddy._

_Exhausted, she stumbled._

_She cried out at the sudden pain in her ankle._

A flash of pain in her head.

_She lay there, the rain mixing with her tears._

_She hadn't heard either voice in hours._

_Had she run far enough? Fast enough? Was she safe?_

"_Cloud…" she whispered._

"_You are **MINE!**"_

Nothingness.

* * *

By the time Cloud made it back to the condos, it was pitch black outside. He managed to knock on the door and pass off Aerith to Tifa before collapsing on the floor, unconscious.

* * *

The rest of the trip was subdued.

Cloud was unconscious for two days with Aerith spending the entire time at his bedside. Once he woke up, she refused to go anywhere without him, which led to problems with Cid when she refused to sleep in a separate room.

"It's not like they haven't already slept together at Elena's house!" Reno joked, causing Cid to frown dissaprovingly.

Aerith's face flashed from deathly white to bright red. "We didn't sleep together!" she protested. "Nothing… happened that night. Cid, I'll sleep in my own bed, just, please, let me stay with Cloud."

Unable to refuse her knowing what she'd gone through, Cid agreed, but insisted that Red stay in the same room "for added protection." Everyone knew that what he really meant was "so that nothing inappropriate happens."

For the next two nights, Cloud would wake up to Aerith muttering something unintelligible in her sleep just before she would scream, "I am myself!" She would then shake uncontrollably until he crawled out of his bed and into hers to wrap his arms around her. Red noticed, but pretended he didn't and said nothing to Cid about it.

Each morning, when Cloud would ask her about her nightmares, Aerith refused to talk with him about it, saying that she was fine and it was nothing to worry about. On the third night, she slept soundly, and while Cloud missed the excuse to cuddle her, he hoped that it was a sign she was recovering from whatever had happened.

That day, as they packed their stuff and prepared to head back to school, Aerith was back to her usual cheerful and happy self. For the first time in the last few days, she spent the majority of her time outside of Cloud's company, and the moodiness that had settled over everyone lifted.

* * *

Monday morning, classes passed as usual, although, before lunch, Barret had the Senior class meet him in the auditorium for an important announcement.

"Welcome back everyone!" Barret boomed. "I hope you had as enjoyable a vacation as possible given the uh, unusual… circumstances." He trailed off. "Nevertheless, it's back to school and as an added treat, we have your first real test coming up in just a week!"

This announcement was met by a loud groan and several profanities from the class.

"Well you better fucking deal with it, 'cause you're back in school now whether you like it or not," he roared, getting back in the usual swing of things. "Besides, just think of how fun a _real_ test will be now that you've gotten a taste of the new system." He finished with a smile so sinister it sent a shiver down Cloud's spine.

"We're all going to die," Vincent observed calmly as they entered the cafeteria, his tone causing Tifa to break out laughing.

As they joined Yuffie at her table, Tifa noticed that her friend looked somewhat down. "What's up, Yuffie?"

"I got detention for an entire week!" the younger girl moaned in despair.

"Oh, _wow_! How'd you manage to do _that?_" Cloud asked in horror.

"Apparently when they say 'Senior class trip' it means that only Seniors are allowed to go."

"Now that you mention it how _did_ you get on our trip?" Vincent asked.

"I hid under a seat on the bus, of course," Yuffie explained, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "When Cid found me on the beach, he _flipped_ out. Said he was going to throw me right back on the ferry, but when I pointed out that I had no money and he'd have to pay my fare, he decided to let me stay."

The entire table laughed at that and the conversation changed to the upcoming test.

The rest of the week passed in a flurry of activity, as the students were crammed full of information. The normal three days of classes a week was changed to five due to the test, meaning there were no days off. By the time the weekend arrived, all Cloud wanted to do was sleep for two days straight, but they hadn't been able to practice together much during the week, so, instead, he spent most of the time working together with Aerith in the park. Not that he was going to complain about that.

* * *

Monday morning, the day of the test, rolled around and Cloud couldn't decide if he was excited or worried as he parked his bike. On one hand, he and Aerith had done pretty well on the practice test, but on the other, this was an actual test and would likely be far more challenging. On top of that, some unshakable feeling of dread wouldn't leave him alone no matter how much he tried to shrug it off.

As the class filed into the gym for their test, they found Barret, their teachers, and the strange desks waiting for them.

"This will be just like last time," Barret announced, "just much longer. Remember that you're scored on both accuracy and speed. Since the questions will be more challenging this time, if you're unable to answer either question at a fork, you do have an option to skip the question. Just keep in mind that it will result in a drastic reduction of your grade and should only be used as a last resort. And, of course, the same rules as before are still in effect."

Cloud thought he might be mistaken, but it felt like that last comment had been directed at Sephiroth.

As they sat at their desk, Cloud smiled confidently at Aerith. "We've got this." She nodded at him and they placed their hands on the Materia.

Just like last time, a wave of darkness engulfed them.

* * *

Cloud helped Aerith to her feet as they came to in the familiar torch-lit room. As they waited for the test to begin, each of them checked the weapons and Materia they had been provided with. To his surprise, Cloud found that he'd only been provided with his weapon.

"Did you get any Materia?" he asked.

"Quite a bit," Aerith responded, slightly confused. "Some of these we haven't even covered in class and they're pretty powerful…"

'_I guess it's just part of their system to make sure we work together,' _Cloud thought.

Once again a door appeared on the wall opposite the torch, and the two of them hurried down the corridor on the other side until they reached a fork.

"Right again? Just like last time?" asked Cloud cheerfully.

Aerith shrugged noncommittally, so Cloud led the way down the right fork. After a short jog, they reached one of the testing rooms and found a table with a piece of paper on it.

"What tragic event happened last year at Junon High resulting in the expulsion of a student?" it read.

Cloud's face paled as he read the question.

"That's an oddly specific History question," Aerith remarked. "And once again, one we haven't cover in class."

"How about we check out the other fork?" Cloud suggested, attempting to conceal his emotions.

"That would be such a waste of time!" Aerith protested. "Besides, wasn't that your old school? Don't you know what happened?"

"I… know what happened…" Cloud responded hesitantly. "I don't really want to talk about it though, can't we please just do the other question?"

"Why would we waste time if you know the answer? Just give it, Cloud!"

"Fine!" Cloud yelled back. "A student was murdered with a sword, chopped to pieces like a piece of meat!"

Aerith's face had gone as white as a sheet and she started trembling uncontrollably. Cloud saw her lips move and couldn't understand what she said, but it sounded like "I am myself" which didn't make any sense.

"Aerith, it wasn't me!" Cloud declared, but she continued to look at him in horror, her body still trembling and her lips still moving over and over. "I swear I didn't do it, I wasn't even accused! He was my friend! I wasn't expelled, my parent's took me out because they didn't want me at a school where something like that could happen!"

But now, looking back, Cloud realized how bad it really looked. The experience had already been traumatic enough, but had he really been blamed for it? Everything he'd said to Aerith had been the truth, but had his parents lied to him? Were they trying to protect him by telling him that they'd pulled him out of the school when in fact he'd been expelled?

Banishing these horrible thoughts to be dealt with later, Cloud realized that Aerith seemed to have calmed down. He reached over to attempt to comfort her, but she flinched away from him.

"What the fuck is up with this test?" he yelled at the ceiling in frustration.

Not surprisingly there was no response. Cloud didn't even know if the teachers could hear them. His response to the question had materialized the door, however, so Cloud opened it to reveal another hallway. Together, they walked down it in silence, once again taking the right fork when they reached it.

The next testing room was much larger and more open, with multiple pillars in the middle. As they entered, several powerful monsters appeared and Cloud sighed in relief. Letting off some steam was exactly what he needed.

Taking a firm grip on his sword, Cloud sliced through the monsters like a hot knife through butter, hardly breaking a sweat. "You know, just because I don't need help doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated," he joked, trying to lighten the mood as he turned around to face Aerith.

He froze when he saw Aerith standing there, her hair blowing gently in a non-existent wind, a Materia he didn't recognize glowing bright green in her hand. Her face was terrifying. The usual warmth in her eyes had been replaced by… nothingness. "Aerith?" Cloud asked hesitantly.

The shift in her eyes from nothingness to pure hatred was actually a relief as the blast of solid air smashed into Cloud's chest, sending him flying backwards to crash into one of the pillars. Cloud felt something break in his chest and would have screamed in pain, but the air had been knocked from his lungs.

"You sicken me. I can't believe I let your filthy hands touch me," Aerith snarled as she put the Materia away and took out a different one.

Cloud looked up at Aerith, barely able to see her through the tears in his eyes. "I don't understand, what did I do?" he asked, finally managing to draw a breath. The cold, cruel look in her eyes hurt far more than any physical pain ever could.

"Die," she hissed as she released the Fira spell directly at him.

As he was engulfed in warm, white light, Cloud's final thought was that this was a surprisingly painless death.

* * *

Cloud woke up in a white room, on a white bed, surrounded by white curtains. The only color other than white in the entire room was Red, who was curled up on the floor beside him. He recognized the room as the school's hospital from a previous visit after an accident in training.

"I'm not dead?" Cloud asked, realizing how stupid the question sounded as he said it.

"Not yet," Red confirmed, uncurling and looking up at Cloud. "Bugenhagen, managed to pull you out of the test just before your loving girlfriend would have turned you into an ember."

"How's she doing?"

"Other than being remarkably unstable, she seems to be doing quite well," Red responded dryly. "Then again, what with you breaking that news on her like that and then proceeding to chop up several monsters into tiny little pieces, can you really blame her for freaking out?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Nanaki," Bugenhagen scolded. "While a shocked and alarmed reaction would indeed be perfectly natural, there's no question that Miss Gainsborough's reaction was far too extreme. Something is seriously wrong. I only wish I'd been allowed to examine her before her mother rushed her off."

"I guess we failed our first test then…" Cloud muttered.

"Nonsense," Bugenhagen responded. "The entire test was cancelled, we should have done it immediately when we realized your first question had been tampered with. Barret insisted that it didn't matter since only yours seemed to have been modified, but it was quite clear that something had gone seriously wrong. I designed each and every question and it should have been impossible for there to be any changes."

"I don't hurt anywhere, how long have I been out for?" Cloud asked.

"Your broken ribs and second degree burns have healed nicely, and it's Friday, so you still have the weekend to continue recovering before classes resume."

'_I've been out for four days…'_ Cloud realized. _'Aerith really did quite a number on me. What the hell is going on?'_

The rest of the day passed in a blur as several visitors stopped by to check on him once they heard that he'd woken up. Tifa was noticeably absent, but Vincent explained that she was with Aerith and couldn't make it.

Cloud's parents picked him up in the evening and drove him home, explaining that they'd already brought his bike back earlier. When he asked them about the expulsion, they admitted that they'd lied to him, but made it clear that they knew he hadn't killed the boy.

Over the weekend he tried to call Aerith several times, but she never answered her phone. Deciding it would be best not to force the issue and to give her some space, Cloud refrained from driving to her house. In the end, he spent the weekend thinking over the strange things that had been happening with Aerith. Whatever was going on, he was pretty sure that, somehow, Sephiroth was involved. Remembering his conversation with Red about Sephiroth's parents, Cloud realized he'd missed his chance to speak with Bugenhagen about the matter. In any case, nothing was going to happen until Monday.

* * *

As Cloud drove into the school's parking lot on Fenrir, he heard a loud commotion outside the front doors. Quickly parking, he rushed over to see what was going on. As he approached he saw Tifa, Vincent and the Turks yelling at Sephiroth. Surprisingly, Cloud noticed that there was a girl clutching Sephiroth's arm, looking up at him adoringly. Cloud didn't recognize her, but he wasn't surprised that Sephiroth's girlfriend would dress like such a slut - what she was wearing could hardly be described as clothes.

Cloud came to an abrupt halt in horror as he got close enough to see the girl's eyes. He would recognize those emerald green eyes anywhere.

It was Aerith.

* * *

**Yes, yes, I know. ANOTHER cliffhanger. On top of that opening scene, I realize I'm being a little cruel to you, my poor readers. I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I did writing it; I think you can see now why I felt so bad leaving the story just as the action was about to kick in. It was really so amazing to get back into writing. I enjoy it so much, and it's such an awesome experience to feel like you know where the story is going only to have a random idea pop into your head that you then have to include. The dream sequence Aerith has after Cloud finds her in the forest is a perfect example of this. It wasn't planned at all, but now it's a ridiculously important scene that ties plot points together as well as a taste of what's to come. And yes, poor Yuffie's detention is the result of me having no idea why I included her on that trip in the first place.**

**Side-note: Just to clarify, I detest the Sephiroth/Aerith pairing. Unfortunately it is obviously going to play a role in the remainder of the story. This is still a Clerith fic, and as painful as the... Sephierith is going to be to write, I hope it won't drive anyone away from the story.**

**I can't make any promises as to when the next chapter will be out, but I do have it all planned out and it's going to be fairly short, so hopefully it won't take another 4 years. :P As always, please leave a review letting me know what you think of the story, I really appreciate it.**

* * *

**Next Chapter: Cloudy Days**


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